Tag: Dynamic menus

What are these features in the “My QAP Essentials” menu?

QAP Features are powerful functionalities that can be inserted in any QAP menu or submenu. For your convenience, the My QAP Essentials menu is built automatically when you installed QAP. It gives access to a subset of the most useful QAP Features.

  • With the Add Favorite – QAP Feature…, add new QAP Features to this menu (see How do I add a favorite to my menu? for help on adding favorites to your menu)
  • With the Quick Launch menu, open a search box to type a few letters and launch one of your QAP favorites or an item from the Recent/Frequent menus.
  • With the Reopen Current Folder in Dialog Box menu, take your file dialog box (Open, Save as, etc.) to the last folder you used in Explorer.
  • With the Reopen a Folder menu, open a folder in Explorer from a menu built with the list of folders already open in Windows Explorer (also useful in file dialog boxes).
  • The Clipboard menu shows the folders, documents, application path or URL saved in your Windows Clipboard.
  • The Drives menu shows the list drives on your system with label, free space, capacity and an icon showing the drive type.

 

Finally, other QAP features were also added in the main QAP menu:

  • The Add Active Folder or Web page menu allows to add on the fly the currently active folder or web page.
  • The Close this menu item allows to close the popup menu if clicking elsewhere or hitting the Esc key do not close the menu as it normally should (you can remove this menu if you never face this issue).

Feel free to add QAP Features to this menu or to move them around. See the list of other QAP features.

Edit the My QAP Essentials menu

The My QAP Essentials menu was added automatically to your main menu when you launched QAP. Using the Customize window, you will be able, if you wish, to rename this menu, move it or break up its content in other submenus. See how to open the Customize window and how to use it to customize your menu.

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What is the “Current Windows” menu and how is it built?

The Current Windows menu is built in two sections. This first part shows the folders already open in the Explorer windows and, if you use this file manager, the Directory Opus listers.

The second part lists the applications running on your system (starting with the most recently activated window). Only applications having “visible” windows are listed. System-hidden windows and zero-width/height windows are excluded. Most of the apps in the System Tray could not be listed unless their window is already visible in the task bar.

When you select an item in this menu, its window is automatically activated (bring to the “front”). This menu is refreshed every time you open the QAP menu.

By default, the Current Windows feature is found under the In the Works menu (before v9.2, it was names Switch and located under the My QAP Essentials menu). You can add it to your menu by adding a favorite of type QAP Feature and select Current Windows under the Dynamic Menus section.

Application exclusions

There may be some applications that you do not want to see in the Current Windows menu. Option the Various Advanced Options tab in the Options dialog box. In the text box, enter a list applications that you want to exclude.

Enter any part of the window title of the application to exclude (the window title is what appears in the top horizontal bar of the window). You can enter multiple exclusions, one per line. For example, to exclude windows of applications Sticky and GhostWindows, enter these lines as shown below:

AStickies:
GhostWindows

 

You can also exclude windows by their class name or process name (EXE file name). You can find more help on these advanced techniques on last parts of the page Can I block the QAP menu trigger (middle mouse button) if it interfere with one of my other apps?

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When should I use the Reopen a Folder menu?

The Reopen a Folder shows the folders already open in the Explorer windows and the Directory Opus listers if you use this file manager. It is refreshed every time you open the QAP menu.

The Reopen a Folder is particularly useful when you are in a file dialog box and want to open a file in a folder already open in another Explorer window. Just select one of these folders in the QAP menu and the dialog box will be moved to it. Change folder in dialog boxes must be enabled in Options.

Reopen Current Folder
You can also reopen the folder in the currently active Windows Explorer window with the Reopen Current Folder in Dialog Box (video).

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What is in the Clipboard menu?

The Clipboard menu in the My QAP Essentials menu reflects the content of you current Windows clipboard. If the clipboard contains URLs, documents, applications or folders file path, QAP shows this list in the menu, allowing you to open a document, launch an application or navigate to a folder found in the Windows Clipboard.

For example, if you select and copy a group of files in Windows Explorer, the list of file paths resides in the Windows clipboard. Quick Access Popup scans this content and adds the files that exists in your system to the Clipboard menu. You can also copy a list of files from a text editor (or any other source) and QAP will display these files in the menu (each line of text must contain a file name/path alone). Relative paths and environment variables are supported.

QAP also scans the Windows clipboard for URLs and displays them as Link entries in the Clipboard menu. In the case of URLs, an address can stands anywhere on a line of text copied to the Clipboard. However, if one line contains more than one URL, only the last one is included in the menu.

To avoid too long delay when refreshing the QAP menu, the Windows Clipboard is processed only if it contains 10 000 characters or less. This default size can be changed in Options, Menus Advanced Options.

If you open the Clipboard menu when the Windows clipboard contains no file or URL, it displays the message No path or URL in Clipboard. If the Clipboard is empty, it displays Clipboard is empty and if it is too large, it displays Clipboard too large to be processed.

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Can I launch a favorite from the Customize window? Can I preview the current content of the Customize window?

The Eye icon on the left side of the Customize window allow you to open a temporary menu showing the current content of the favorites list. This menu can be open and these favorites can be launched as in the regular menu. Your menu does not need to be saved to be previewed.

This preview menu can also be shown in search results. In this example, the search result shows items containing “My”. The temporary menu shows the five items in the search result.

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Can I repeat or reopen one of the last favorites I selected recently?

You can reopen a recently opened favorite in the Repeat Last Actions menu. If this menu is not already in your popup menu, add a new favorite of type QAP Feature (see What are the QAP features?).

If you select Repeat Last Action (singular), an item labeled Repeat Last Action is added to this menu and, when you select it, it reopen the last favorite you opened. The label of this feature is always Repeat Last Action. You have to remember what was the last action you selected.

If you select Repeat Last Actions (plural), a menu labeled Repeat Last Actions is shown containing the 10 most recent favorites that you launched. You can configure the number of items in this menu in the Options, Menu Appearance tab.

Items in the Repeat Last Actions menu are sorted chronologically (most recent first). When an item is selected in the Repeat Last Actions menu, it is launched and its entry is moved to the top of the menu.

If a favorite is edited, the favorite in the Repeat Last Actions menu will remain unchanged. And if a favorite is removed, it will stay in the Repeat Last Actions menu until it is pushed out of the menu or until QAP is closed.

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From where comes the content of the Recent folders and Recent files menus?

The Recent folders and Recent files menus list the recent places or documents memorized by Windows. An option in the Menu tab of the Options window determines the number of items displayed in these menus (default is 10).

Quick Access Popup Recent folders and Recent files are taken from the Windows virtual folder Recent items (C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent or, using the appdata variable, %appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent).

This Windows system folder lists the files and folders recently accessed by the user. The Recent Folders menu includes only folder items from this list and the Recent Files includes the rest of it.

Windows is also using this list to populate the Recent Places virtual folder found in Explorer left pane. Recent items are also used to populate the Microsoft applications Jump Lists.

If you want to delete the content of Recent Items folder and of these QAP menus, see these instructions: How can I delete the content of the Recent Folders or Recent Files menus?

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