Add custom explorer bar buttons and actions

Hey Everyone,

I want to start by saying thank you to all of you. You all have helped me out of a lot of jams this past year. So, here's my contribution to the customization world. Not being very artistic, I'll let you guys create the cool images. My contribution is in the form of code. JavaScript code to be exact. I've recently created a JavaScript application that will install custom buttons to the Windows Vista\7 Explorer Bar and provide the functions to carry out their actions. Currently the script installs 5 buttons and actions. 'Copy to folder', 'Move to folder', 'Show desktop', 'Switch windows', and my favorite, 'Unblock files'. Because it's JavaScript, anyone with a little coding expierence will have no problem modifying it to add more buttons and actions. It's completely free to anyone who wants it. Has seperate install scripts for each set of buttons. A copy of the program can be downloaded from my skydrive account. Feel free to share it and drop me note if you like it.
ExBarButtons.zip - Windows Live

Thanks for sharing! In your screenshot, though, you have icons for the "Delete" and "Share" button? How do you do that? Also, is there a way you can remove items from the Explorer bar?

Well, trying to find out how to delete buttons is how I got started on this project. The 'Share' button only shows up when you have file sharing enabled. That's the same for the 'Burn' button, if you disable recording, the burn button goes away. But you'll need a 3rd party application to burn any CD's/DVD's. As for the delete button, you'll have to modify the registry.

Start Regedit and navigate to the following key and expand to view it's subkeys.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\FolderTypes\

Under the foldertypes key, you'll find a mess of keys with names like this..
{0b7467fb-84ba-4aae-a09b-15b71097af9e}

As you expand each of them, you'll notice in the right hand pane information that can be used to determine what kind of folders each one is, 'Music', 'Pictures' and the like. Under each folder you'll see at least two keys named...
TasksItemsSelected and TasksNoItemsSelected, respectively.

You're going to be interested in the former, TasksItemsSelected. There may or may not be subkeys under this item, if there is, most likely they'll be named 0, 1, 2, 3, etc.. You'll want to create a new key under TasksItemsSelected with the next highest available number value as it's name. Under this key create another key and name it Delete . And that's it, do that for each of the foldertypes.

If I find out how to delete any of the other buttons, I definitely post the heck out of it.

Cad

CadWizard said:

Well, trying to find out how to delete buttons is how I got started on this project. The 'Share' button only shows up when you have file sharing enabled. That's the same for the 'Burn' button, if you disable recording, the burn button goes away. But you'll need a 3rd party application to burn any CD's/DVD's. As for the delete button, you'll have to modify the registry.

Start Regedit and navigate to the following key and expand to view it's subkeys.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\FolderTypes\

Under the foldertypes key, you'll find a mess of keys with names like this..
{0b7467fb-84ba-4aae-a09b-15b71097af9e}

As you expand each of them, you'll notice in the right hand pane information that can be used to determine what kind of folders each one is, 'Music', 'Pictures' and the like. Under each folder you'll see at least two keys named...
TasksItemsSelected and TasksNoItemsSelected, respectively.

You're going to be interested in the former, TasksItemsSelected. There may or may not be subkeys under this item, if there is, most likely they'll be named 0, 1, 2, 3, etc.. You'll want to create a new key under TasksItemsSelected with the next highest available number value as it's name. Under this key create another key and name it Delete . And that's it, do that for each of the foldertypes.

If I find out how to delete any of the other buttons, I definitely post the heck out of it.

Cad

Thank you for the reply, but I was talking about the custom icons, as in images. For instance, the red 'X' icon on the delete button. I don't have any icons on my Explorer bar, and I'm just curious as to how you got them there.

Oh yeah, I'm sorry, I know that. I haven't discovered the reason for that or how to change it either, but the difference is that the screen shot is Windows Vista. Windows 7 by default doesn't display the icons even though they are defined in the registry. I was going to try and find out if that may be an effects setting in Windows 7, but I keep getting interupted every time I log into Windows 7. I'll ask around and let you know.

CadWizard, your script works just fine for me. However, I've found a problem, but it's not just with your script. I wanted to add my own buttons on the Explorer bar, but I wanted the internal Windows command: Windows.properties, and Windows.rename. I went to the following registry key

Code:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderTypes\{5c4f28b5-f869-4e84-8e60-f11db97c5cc7}\TasksItemsSelected

and set the value of default to "Windows.properties;Windows.rename". I opened a new Explorer window, and the buttons were added!

But your "Copy to..." and "Move to..." buttons, as well as the "Delete" button that I added from Brink's tutorial were gone! The subkeys "0", "1", and "2" (Delete, CopyTo, and MoveTo, respectively) were still there, it's just that they lost their effect!

I then removed the "Windows.properties;Windows.rename" value from the default registry value, and lo and behold, the "Copy to...", "Move to...", and "Delete" buttons were back!

After repeating the same procedure, it seems that I can't have custom buttons as long as the value of default is set to anything other than blank. Do you notice this on your computer as well? Do you have any idea on how to work around this, or is it a bug? I'd like to have your "Copy to..." and "Move to..." commands, but I'd also like to have "Windows.properties" and "Windows.rename".

Misfortune... Thank You so much!!!!!!
Yes, that bug showed up on my niece's lap top. I've been stressed about it every since. But no one else has reported it. Thanks to you I know where the problem lies. I don't know how to fix it yet, but I'll get back to you as soon as I do.

Right now I'm thinking of creating my own class in Visual Studio so the buttons can be installed like the standard buttons in Windows 7 under the default key. Something like CAD.MoveTo.... It may be the only way around this.

Again, thanks for the heads up, I appreciate it.

CadWizard said:

Misfortune... Thank You so much!!!!!!
Yes, that bug showed up on my niece's lap top. I've been stressed about it every since. But no one else has reported it. Thanks to you I know where the problem lies. I don't know how to fix it yet, but I'll get back to you as soon as I do.

Right now I'm thinking of creating my own class in Visual Studio so the buttons can be installed like the standard buttons in Windows 7 under the default key. Something like CAD.MoveTo.... It may be the only way around this.

Again, thanks for the heads up, I appreciate it.

You're very welcome; I'm glad I could help !

But I'm not entirely sure if this is your fault. As I mentioned in my previous post, I had followed a tutorial to add the "Delete" button to the Explorer Bar. It is based on creating the "0" subkey under TasksItemsSelected, and uses no external scripts.

Yet even that key failed to take effect once the contents of the default string were modified. The same thing happened even after adding more subkeys ("4", "5", etc.); no matter how many subkeys you add, and no matter what the command, they don't take effect (at least on my computer!) as long as the default string under TaskItemsSelected is modified. Perhaps this is a Windows bug ?

Also, I'd like to mention -- as an addition to my previous post -- that I've set all folder templates to the "General" view, and I don't use libraries. Consequently, I've only tested this under the key

Code:

{5c4f28b5-f869-4e84-8e60-f11db97c5cc7}

and nowhere else. I'm not sure if that will make a difference, but I wanted to mention it.