Using separators

Separators are buttons of a special type, which appear as vertical or horizontal bars. Please read article Creating Separators for more information on creating separators.

Separators are helpful for grouping different shortcuts within a menu.

In this example, we have organized our shortcuts in three groups:

• Open Office
• Graphics tools
• Internet tools

For the better clearness, we can add text to separators. Please note that arranging buttons will arrange them within a group only, i.e. items will only be arranged between two separators or between a separator and the top or bottom of the menu.

If the menu view mode is set to “Icons only” or “Icons with text”, the separators will be drawn to the full width of the menu, just like they do for the default view mode:

Separators add a number of items to the context menu:

• Change title – changes the separator title. Leaving this field blank will create a separator with no text.
• Enable Expand/Collapse – enables collapsible separators. When this option is enabled, the “-” button appears on the left of the separator. Clicking on that button or on the separator will hide all items within that group, and the separator button will appear as “+”. Clicking on the “+” will show all items within that group again.
• Enable Run All – allows running all applications within the group. The Run button will appear on the left of the separator bar. Clicking on that button will run all the buttons within that group just as if you had run applications within the group one by one. This is helpful when you need to run multiple applications at the same time.
• Auto collapse – enables the automatic collapsing of a group when another group is expanded or when the menu is closed.

This figure displays the collapsed “Open Office” group, Collapse/Expand, and the Run All buttons.

As it was mentioned above, when a group is collapsed, its buttons become hidden and appear on the “Show Hidden” item of the context menu. A great effect can be created if you enable showing one or a few buttons from a collapsed group. When the group is expanded, the visible buttons become hidden, and the hidden ones will become visible. Thus the buttons will toggle every time you click on the item.