shell-x | Dynamic context menu manager for Windows | Menu library

shell-x is a C# library typically used in User Interface, Menu applications. shell-x has no bugs, it has no vulnerabilities and it has low support. You can download it from GitHub.

In Windows Explorer context menus are an extremely important part of the User Experience (UX). Just a single right-click on the file allows a convenient access to the file type specific operations. Unfortunately creation and customization context menus were always a pain point. The problem is that Windows implements explorer context menus as so called Shell Extensions. They are a heavy weight COM servers that is not trivial to implement. And what is even more important they are components that must be rebuild/recompiled every time user wants to change the menu structure or the associated menu action. And this in turn dramatically affects the user adoption of context menus as an operating system feature. Interestingly enough Windows has introduces an alternative light way for managing very specific context menu - "Send to". The customisation of the "Send to" is dead simple. User simply goes to the special folder and creates there shortcut(s) to the desired application. Then at runtime the shortcut name will become the content menu item. And shortcut itself will be invoked (with the selected file path passed as an argument) when user selects this menu item. This means that creation and customization of the "Send to" context menu is a simple file creation/editing activity that does not even require user to be an admin (elevated). Shell-X applies the same simplified approach but extends it by allowing creation of any context menu for any file type.