F4MiniMenu - v0.97

A F4 Menu[1] program for Total Commander to open selected file(s) in editor(s).

Features

• Open selected files in defined Editor(s) - on a first come, first serve basis
• Optional: Show menu with: a. All Editors (full menu) b. Matching Editors (filtered menu)
• Various methods to open selected files: regular, "Drag & Drop", Filelist, cmdline
• Document Templates to create new files for file types other than "text" - DocumentTemplates README
• Open source - written in AutoHotkey

Discussion)

• F4MiniMenu TC Forum thread.
• GH Issues

Introduction

F4 is the shortcut key used in Total Commander - a file manager for Windows - for opening selected files in a pre-defined editor. In TC only one program can be assigned to F4 making it impossible to define or select other editors for different file types. Several tools have been made to solve this problem, these include:

• ChoiceEditor
• Open File shell for TC
• Total Commander Edit Redirector
• and of course F4Menu - TC Forum thread

While the original F4Menu has quite a few options, this "clone" started out as a minimalistic program with only the basic functionality: opening multiple file types in various editors.

There are various methods to open selected files: regular, "Drag & Drop", Filelist or by making use of a cmdline option.

As of v0.95 you can make use a helper script to use F4MiniMenu settings as the "internal editor" defined in Total Commander and use so called DocumentTemplates for creating new files. See F4TCIE.

As of v0.97 there are two foreground menus:

1. Show all programs in the menu
2. Show matching programs (filtered): only show those programs which match the extensions of the selected files. You can still access the full menu by using the 'full menu' option that is shown in this menu. The default editor will remain the first menu entry. If it can't find any matching program, the full menu is shown instead.

First come, first serve

F4MiniMenu will open a file in the first editor it can find a match for based on the extension. If it can not find a match it will open the file(s) in the default editor. The default editor is the first editor listed in the Configure editors window. If you look in the configuration XML it will be the first editor there. If you want to open the file(s) in another program you can use the Foreground menu option. See screenshot below.

You can add or modify editors via the tray menu or by bringing up the Foreground menu. You can use %Commander_Path% in the paths to the editors and icons.

Tip(s)

In principle you can run F4Menu (or other tools) and F4MiniMenu side by side as long as you do not use conflicting keyboard shortcuts. If you use same hotkey setup, F4MiniMenu will take precedence. You can set the F4MiniMenu shortcuts via the tray menu, right click, Settings option.

In general: be careful opening with opening large numbers of files at once, programs can crash and your computer could become unstable requiring a reboot.

Do not edit the "F4MiniMenu.xml" or "F4MiniMenu.ini" settings file while the script is running, any changes you make will be overwritten when the script exits. As of v0.61 a backup is made at startup and saved as "F4MiniMenu.xml.bak" or "F4MiniMenu.ini.bak"

Disclaimer

Use at your own risk.

Drag & Drop support

Many programs support Drag & Drop, but not all programs will respond well to the Drag & Drop method used in this script, so if it does not seem to work with a particular program, try the Normal method.

Filelist support

Some programs allow you to open files which are listed in a (temporary) file. In Total Commander you can use something similar in the Button bar and in the Start Menu where you can use the %L parameter to create a list file with the names of the selected files and directories, one file per line. F4MiniMenu can do the same. If you use this method a temporary file named $$f4mtmplist$$.m3u is created which is passed on to the target program.

Example Filelist usage:

Program: C:\Program Files\XnView\xnview.exe
Parameters: -filelist
Method: 3 - Filelist

Result: Selected files will now be opened in the XnView browser.

cmdline support

In case you need to pass the selected files to the program on the command line (program.exe file1 file2 etc) you can use the cmdline method.

Examples cmdline usage:

Program: C:\Program Files\Meld\Meld.exe
Method: 4 - cmdline

Result: Selected files will be opened in Meld (diff program) Discussion

Program: c:\tools\mp3wrap\mp3wrap.exe
Parameters: ?output.mp3
Startdir: %p
Method: 4 - cmdline

Result: Selected MP3 files will be merged into one larger MP3 file asking the user for a filename (output.mp3 would be default)

Notes:

• The reason for the .m3u extension is simple: it enables playlist support for WinAmp: Select multiple music files and press the hotkey to play the selected files. If the temporary file didn't have the .m3u extension WinAmp wouldn't recognize it as a playlist.
• The temporary file $$f4mtmplist$$.m3u is not deleted directly after use to avoid problems with slow programs. It is deleted when F4MiniMenu starts or closes.

Setup

Requirements

• AutoHotkey 1.1+ (Ansi or Unicode)
• Total Commander

Install

Script

Download the source as a ZIP from GitHub here https://github.com/hi5/F4MiniMenu/archive/master.zip and unpack. To start it simply run F4MiniMenu.ahk. You can now setup F4MiniMenu using the tray menu options for Settings and Configure editors.

Once you have setup your shortcuts you can also access Settings and Configure editors via the Foreground menu options by pressing the shortcut (press Esc+F4 by default). See screenshots below.

Executable

1. If you wish you can compile the script to a standalone executable using AHK2Exe. Documentation
2. Or see https://github.com/hi5/F4MiniMenu/releases (32 & 64 bit versions of both F4MiniMenu and F4TCIE)

XML or INI - There are two versions:

1. F4MiniMenu.ahk uses XML to store settings (F4MiniMenu.xml)
2. If you prefer to store your settings in INI format (F4MiniMenu.ini) simply rename the (compiled) script so it ends with an i (letter i) so rename or copy F4MiniMenu.ahk to F4MiniMenui.ahk and start it. That would work, but F4MMi.exe as well for example.

Helper script: F4TCIE.ahk

If you want to make use of your preferred editor(s) when the active panel is in an Archived file (ZIP panel) or FTP connection you can make use of a helper script called F4TCIE. If you are using the INI format to store your settings be sure to rename the script to end with an "i" (see 'XML or INI' above)

Setup F4TCIE

When F4MiniMenu sees the files you have selected are in an archive or in an FTP panel, it uses the default Total Commander Edit command. It will only use the first file if you had selected multiple files in the archive or FTP.

So we need to configure Total Commander to use F4TCIE.ahk like so:

TC, Configuration, Edit/View, Editor:
drive:\path-to\F4TCIE.ahk "%1"

If for some reason it can't open the configuration file it will try to start the editor for the file type associated in Windows (so for txt -> notepad, for bmp,jpg -> MS Paint etc) - if there is no editor for the file type it would start notepad.exe as a final resort.

Reference: see also #13

DocumentTemplates

F4TCIE can also make use of DocumentTemplates when creating New files in Total Commander using the shift+f4 shortcut.

More information can be found in the DocumentTemplates README

Parameters/Options

Note: More %f4 fields may be added in the future.

Example: %f41

F4MiniMenu starts programs as follows:

ProgramName.exe Parameters File(s) Startdir

But for some programs the parameter(s) - the additional command(s) you want to pass on to the program - have the come AFTER the File(s) so by using %f41 as a placeholder in the parameters field you can tell F4MiniMenu where to place the files on the "command line"

Program: pdftk.exe
Parameters: %f41 burst

So the program now starts as pdftk.exe file.pdf burst (instead of pdftk.exe burst file.pdf)

Closing F4MiniMenu

Use tray menu, exit.

You can also automatically close F4MiniMenu using the following options (available via Settings):

1. Close F4MM when all copies of TC close: this waits until all running copies of Total Commander are closed, then exit F4MiniMenu.
2. Close F4MM when TC closes started by F4MM: If you have started (a new) Total Commander via F4MiniMenu, wait until that specific Total Commander closes, then exit F4MiniMenu.

Screenshots

Foreground menu

Confirm maximum

General program settings

Configure editors

Editor configuration

TODO - Known issues

1. TOFIX: If you change the order of the editors first and then add a new one, the order is set back to the initial order.
   2. INFO: Delay (in milliseconds) is only applicable to Drag & Drop method.
2. INFO: Two options for delay (as of v0.9):
   2.1 Drag & Drop delay gives program to start up before trying to drop the files - you may need to apply trail and error.
   2.2 Open delay, pauses X ms to open next file.

Credits

Used AHK Functions & Libraries

• Class LV_Rows by Pulover - as of v0.6
• XA Save / Load Arrays to/from XML Functions
• DropFilesA - SKAN including Unicode version nimda

Changelog

• See changelog.md

Notes

[1] Based on original idea from F4Menu by Shao Shanny - Backup links for the program can be found on the Total Commander forum