Directory Opus Manual

Adding a new Column from Shell Properties

Directory Opus has script support for Windows shell properties, making it easy for a script to enumerate properties in the system and retrieve the properties for a file.

Note that if you just want to display a column from File Explorer, you can do so via Preferences / File Display Columns / Shell Properties without writing any code; just turn on the columns you want in the list by clicking their checkboxes. But scripting may be useful if you wish to change what the column displays in some way.

The main scripting methods involved are:

• Use FSUtil.GetShellPropertyList to retrieve a list of properties (optionally matching a wildcard pattern).
• Use FSUtil.GetShellProperty to get the value of one or more properties for a file.
• Use Item.ShellProp to get the value of a single property for the item.

Below is an example script add-in that adds columns to Opus that show the value of shell properties for DWG (AutoCAD) files added by a third party tool.

Function OnInit(initData)
    initData.name = "DWG Columns"
    initData.desc = "Adds DWG Columns from the JTB World extension"
    initData.copyright = "(c) 2016 jpotter"
    initData.version = "1.0"
    initData.default_enable = true
    initData.min_version = "12.0.8"

    Dim props, prop, col
    Set props = DOpus.FSUtil.GetShellPropertyList("dwg.*", "r")

    for each prop in props
        Set col = initData.AddColumn
        col.name = prop.raw_name
        col.method = "OnDWGColumn"
        col.label = prop.display_name
        col.justify = "left"
        col.autogroup = true
        col.userdata = prop.pkey
    next
End Function

Function OnDWGColumn(scriptColData)
    scriptColData.value = scriptColData.item.shellprop(scriptColData.userdata)
End Function