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customize:creating_your_own_buttons:command_editor
Command Editor
The Command Editor is the main route to creating your own buttons, hotkeys, user-defined commands and other functions in Opus. There are several variants of the command editor dialog used throughout the program, although they all have the same basic design.
This screenshot shows two variations of the command editor. The one on the left is the editor for a standard toolbar button - the function being edited is the Viewer Pane command from the default toolbar. The one on the right is the editor for the New Lister hotkey.
- Images: When the command is displayed in a toolbar or a drop-down menu, the image settings will be used to display an image for the command. Hotkeys do not have images as they are never physically displayed on screen.
- Images: The two Images fields let you define up to two images for a button. The first image is the primary image; it is the one most often displayed. If the Dual image option is enabled, the second image field lets you define a secondary image that's displayed when the mouse is over the button.
- Show image: Turn this on to enable the button's images. This may be overridden by settings defined for the toolbar - see below for more details.
- Dual image: Turn this on to enable the secondary image when the mouse is over the button.
- Large image size: Displays large images instead of small. This may be overridden by settings defined for the toolbar - see below for more details.
- No highlight border: The button won't have a border (frame) when the mouse is over it.
- Colors: You can specify a text and background color for the button that will override the normal colors for the toolbar. Hotkeys do not have color fields.
- Label: When the Show label option is turned on, the button's label will be displayed in the toolbar or menu. If the button has an image as well you can choose the label's position relative to the image - for example, selecting right will position the label to the right of the image. This may be overridden by settings defined for the toolbar - see below for more details.
If a button's label has an ampersand (&) character before a letter, that letter will be marked as a type of hotkey for that button. When the button is on the top-level of a toolbar, pressing Alt plus that letter activates the button. For example, the File menu's label is actually set to &File - meaning you can press Alt+F to open the File menu. If you want to use a literal ampersand character in the label, you must use a double & instead (e.g. Backup && Restore).
You can also use \t to insert a tab character. This can used in menus to seprate the main label, on the left, from additional information which is aligned to the right. As a convention, it is typically used to display hotkeys. For example, the label for Edit > Paste is &Paste\tCtrl+V to help you know you can use Ctrl+V as a hotkey. Note that the label does not define a hotkey in any way (there's a separate Hotkey field for that), and it's up to you to ensure the actual hotkey is consistent with what the label says it is.
- Tip: This is a description of the command that's displayed in a pop-up tooltip when you hover the mouse over the button. You can insert a line break in the tooltip (and therefore split it to multiple lines) using the \n sequence.
- Hotkey: This lets you assign a hotkey to the button. Pressing the assigned key will activate the button's function as if you had clicked it. The hotkey field is a special control designed to make it easy to enter a key combination. See the page on Using the Hotkey Control for more information.
There are two types of hotkeys; local and global. A hotkey you define for a button in a Lister toolbar or menu is a local hotkey, that works only when a Lister is the active window. Global hotkeys work anywhere in the system (as long as Opus is running). By definition, hotkeys defined for buttons in floating toolbars are global. The command editor for a hotkey function (that is, a function that exists solely as a hotkey, rather than a hotkey assigned to a toolbar button) lets you select the local or global state using the System-wide Hotkey option. See the Hotkeys page for more information on defining hotkeys.
If you assign a hotkey to a button that opens a drop-down menu, pressing the hotkey will pop the menu open.
- Function: This is the actual function that the button will run when it's activated. The screenshot above shows the dialog in simple mode, where the function can only be a single line - there is also an advanced mode which lets you have multiple-line functions. The function can run an internal Opus command or an external program. See the pages on both simple and advanced mode for more information on defining the function.
- Start in: When a command runs an external program, this field specifies the folder that the program will start in (in other words, the new program's current directory). This field isn't used for internal Opus commands.
- Run: When running an external program this lets you specify how the program's window is to appear. You can choose from Normal Window (the program itself defines the window size), Minimized (the program will open minimized to the taskbar), Maximized (it will open full screen) and Hidden (it won't show a window at all). Not all programs will respect these settings. You need to be careful when using Hidden as it can result in the program running without any visible user interface - you should only use it when you know that's definitely what you want. It's most useful when launching a DOS script that runs and quickly exits, as it lets you hide the quick "flash" of the DOS command prompt.
Some of the options in the command editor can be overridden by the settings for the toolbar the button is in - the Show image, Large image size and Show label options can all be overridden by the options in the Images & Labels setting on the Toolbars tab in the Customize dialog.
The Advanced button at the bottom lets you switch from simple to advanced mode.
More:
Simple Command Editor
Advanced Command Editor
Using the Hotkey Control