Copyright: 12Ghosts ShellX Help. Copyright © 1993-2000 12Ghosts, Inc. All rights reserved.


PACT ShellX
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 12Ghosts ShellX
Shell extension to add user defined context menu commands
(12Ghosts ShellX is a ZDNet Editors' Pick "5 Star" Program)

Add new commands to the context menu of files and folders. Just right-click on a file or folder in Explorer, or in any Open or Save As dialog box, to access the new ShellX commands. The user defined commands available are:

•	Copy Path to Clipboard

•	DOS Prompt Here

•	DOS Prompt and Start: Did you ever wonder what a batch file did, but the DOS box was set to "close on exit"? ShellX's "DOS Prompt and Start" now supports DOS executables and batch files by opening a DOS box, executing the DOS exe or batch file and STICKS AROUND after all that!

•	New Subfolder Here

•	Show properties like add-up folder size or file version

•	ShellX Menu Settings

•	More commands: Shredder, 12-Zip, 12-Replace, and 12-SetFileDate.

•	12-Shredder (optional): Nobody will ever be able to recover a file you put into the shredder!

•	12-SetFileDate (optional): now with user-friendly dialog box to change the file times created, modified and last accessed. Enhanced command line processing. Include all files in one folder or include subfolders.

•	12-Replace (optional): replace any text in files and folders, file mask, preview, replace-all, and more.

•	12-Zip (optional): fast compression, compatible to ZIP standard.

Copy Path to Clipboard

Copy the full path name of the selected file to clipboard. You can insert the path into any edit field by pressing Ctrl+V or by right-clicking and selecting Paste. If you click on a shortcut, this will indeed copy the target path of the shortcut!

DOS Prompt Here

Bring up a DOS prompt (aka Command Line) with the selected folder as the current path.

DOS Prompt and Start

Did you ever wonder what a batch file did, but the DOS box was set to "close on exit"? ShellX's "DOS Prompt and Start" now supports DOS executables and batch files by opening a DOS box, executing the DOS exe or batch file and STICKS AROUND after all that! This way you can read the output even if you have "close on exit" enabled in the _default.pif. And you are still on the command line, so you can enter more commands! To try this, just right-click on a DOS executable or batch file and select DOS Prompt Here. (By the way, to exit a DOS box with only one key stroke, it may be a good idea to create a batch file called "e.bat" in your Windows folder, which just contains the line "exit". To exit type E and press Enter.)

New Subfolder Here

Create a new subfolder below the selected on folder. You might want to 'Select new folder' after creation.

Choose "Select new folder" to directly jump to the newly created folder. In "explore" view this might be an advantage, in "open" view not really. (Note, only Windows 98 will open a new window, Win95 or NT will not.)

Display and Copy File Properties

Display the following properties as a menu entry (all properties also appear in the status bar and you can copy them to clipboard):

• Size in bytes. For folders, you have an additional option here: you can choose to calculate the size including subfolders if Ctrl is pressed. Depending on drive speed and folder size, calculation may be time consuming.

• Date created

• Date last modified

• Date last accessed

• The operating system for which the executable was designed for (of course, only if the developer set this value correctly.) The display of "Win32" means the application was designed to run on Windows 95/98/NT. "on NT" indicates NT is expected to be running, not DOS. "Win16" and "DOS" files rarely include a type and version.

• The file version if available. Most executables, DLLs and device drivers provide this information for your convenience in finding out the newest version of a file. Win16 and DOS files rarely include a type and version.

ShellX Menu Settings

Open the ShellX Settings window. In the Start menu you will also find a link to 12Ghosts ShellX Settings for changing the entries in the context menu.

Shredder

This will overwrite, truncate, rename, and delete the file. Nobody will ever be able to recover a file you put into the shredder! Nobody will even find out the previous size or the previous name. It will be overwritten three times with different bit patterns so that even the magnetic adjustment will be mixed up.

Verification: You can add the option "FilesShredStop" to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\PACT Software\ShellX" and set it to "1". This will stop the shredding process after each step so you can check the results.

Note: If you click on a shortcut (.lnk), not the shortcut but the target will be deleted, i.e. the "real" file! However, if you select more than one file including a shortcut, and the shortcut does not have a focus, then the shortcut itself is deleted, and not the target. This idiosyncrasy depends on Windows Explorer and would impede all context menu extensions.

FAQ Frequently Asked Questions

• What is a shell extension?
• What is a context menu?
• Does a menu extension make the menu slower?

What is a shell extension?

The X stands for eXtension. ShellX actually is a context menu extension. A shell extension appears as a part of Windows. The ShellX menu entries are always available in the context menu of files and folders, throughout the shell, in Explorer, as well as in Open and Save As dialog boxes.

What is a context menu?

When you right-click on any file or folder in Explorer, and in Open and Save As dialog boxes, the menu for this "object" appears. Depending on the type of object you click on, a file or a folder, the menu is slightly different. In other words, in different "contexts" different ”context menus” will appear.

Does a menu extension make the menu slower?

Yes, by about 0.000001 second. Since one reviewer liked to pretend it does, we did some testing. We were quite surprised at hearing that it might be any slower. In fact, every menu entry in every context menu anywhere in Windows is generated dynamically, so adding one more or less shouldn't make a noticeable difference.

To add all ShellX menu entries together, not more than 100 lines of C code are necessary, resulting in at most 200 or 300 processor cycles. If you have a 200 MHz processor this would last about one millionth of a second (= 0.000001 second). Hardly relevant.

And the memory and load times? The complete ShellX menu implementation, which is in fact shellx.dll, is 25 KB. If you had 32 MB of RAM, an additional 25 KB is less than 0.1% of main memory. To load shellx.dll - and this occurs only once, the first time you open the context menu - that is, to load 25 KB from an average disk drive, with an average data throughput of 2.5 MB per second, would last about 0.01 seconds.

Sorry, we were not actually able to measure this.

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