Is it possible to add an option to the Arrange Icons menu? - c#

I have written a short console based C# application which automatically arranges my desktop icons.
Is it possible to add an entry into the desktop "Arrange Icons By" menu for my custom sorting?

This might show you enough technique to get started.

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Dynamic form with resizing in C# .net

As a learning project in C# .net I am re-creating a Gnome 3 plugin for seeing who of the streamers you follow on Twitch is live. I have the settings form done, I am now working on the interface that is viewed from a click on the taskbar.
This is a rough image of what I want the interface to look like. When two or more streamers are live the interface would add another block and resize the form vertically similar to the menu for selecting a Wifi network in Windows.
What would be the best way for me to complete this?
My current thought is to maybe create a custom control and just place those inside a FlowLayoutPanel with some kind of code to change the vertical size of the form to match the added entries. Maybe this can be done without a custom control and be done with code inside a FlowLayoutPanel? I'm not too sure.
Ideally I would also have a click event in the panel for each streamer so I could then open a browser to their channel. A slight highlight would also be a plus (maybe change the background colour based on mouse hover).
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

wp8 cant find a built-in options menu

Does anybody know if this control comes with the windows phone 8 SDK or if I must program it?
This screen appears when I go to people => click + icon. There are many very similar screens in windows phone but I don't know if they're ready controls or custom ones.
What I need is a screen that hides all background and just shows a list of options upon clicking a certain button, and I want to handle application overflow depending on the option the user chose.
Any ideas?
You can use the CustomMessageBox from toolkit http://phone.codeplex.com
it takes a Content that can be a listbox or user control.
and you can make it take the full screen.
check this: http://shawnoster.com/2012/10/welcome-custommessagebox-to-the-windows-phone-toolkit/
and this: https://stackoverflow.com/a/15944006/1423885

Add custom item to right click menu when user selects text

I want to add a custom menu item to the menu that appears when a user selects some text and right clicks. I searched a lot but did not get any answer. Maybe I did not put in the right keyword.
Is it possible to do this?
If this is possible, I want to do this for all applications in windows whenever the user selects text. Is there a universal way to do it or will have to write code specific to the application?
I am using C#.
I don't think you can do that universally in all windows apps. But it is certainly possible to do in your own app using a popup menu.
I've also tried a way to add an item to the standard ContextMenu and failed. From my point of view, the only solution is to set the TextBox's ContextMenuStrip property to an instance of the ContextMenuStrip class and implement both standard and your custom menu items. It is easy to mimic standard operation, since the TextBox class provides all required methods: Cut, Copy, Paste, SelectAll.
The universal way is basically writing a "custom shell extension".
There is an article on CodeProject about how to do this.
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/174369/How-to-Write-Windows-Shell-Extension-with-NET-Lang
The other way to do this is to build this into your application. For example you might have a text editor and you'll want to highlight a word and get a definition for that word. To do this you'll need to implement a context menu.
The VERY BASIC concept is detailed over on CodeReview.StackExchange.
https://codereview.stackexchange.com/questions/3983/c-programatically-creating-context-menu

WPF C# UI : New Window or Tab?

Our WPF application in the current design opens new windows for list screen.We don't have restrictions on the number of windows you open etc.We are using a ribbon control and well it has tab support.Which is better a new window or a tab? (With windows 7 having a better group of window management etc) Should I go in for tab or leave it as window. I can't make the detail screen tab since well the user click of a item in the grid to select and edit.Any valid suggestions? Thanks in advance.
Tabs in a Ribbon shouldn't change the view. The Ribbon is an enhanced toolbar, not a view changer.
If your using the MS Ribbon via OfficeUI, then there is a stipulation in the design guidelines that the view should never change the appearance of the ribbon (apart from loading context tabs) and that they ribbon should never wholesale change the view.
In regards to your question, do you mean that you have list/grid and you want a view to be able to change the data in the row. Eg. they double click a row, a view appears that gives them the ability to edit that row?
The right way is to ask your users what they like more. If you can't ask users, ask yourself - what you find more convenient - to open\close windows or switch between tabs. I wouldn't rely on win7 task bar as it's grouping behavior can be disabled or users may use another OS. Also I would suggest to check Microsoft guidelines for using ribbon.
Do you need to see more than one pane's content at once? Windows allow this, but tabs do not.
Tabs make management of the various windows easier at the expense of some flexibility.
Are your users likely to be running on multiple windows?
It is really hard to give a confident answer to you on this one without knowing more about your application and your user's requirements.
Windows 7 displays multiple previews on grouped windows of the application, however in case of tab, like IE, you will have to write quite a good custom code to show your tabs in preview of Windows 7 taskbar, which in case of Multiple Windows, it will be done automatically.
Not only that, Windows 7 also lets you put seven toolbar buttons on the preview windows, very few people knows about it because no application currently does it.
For tabs you will need to do extra programming to support multi window preview.
So its better to stay with multi window solution for now.
However in case of IE, if you try to use Windows 7 taskbar, the tabs dont align themselves in correct order of what is displayed in preview, it could be bug, but yes there might be certain limitations because when user chooses the tab to preview you will not be able to show them preview unless you make it active and thats why its little bad.
I recommend playing with Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome if you want to see tabs at their finest.
Notice that tabs can be teared out into a separate window and windows can be docked as tabs.

Non intrusive 'live' help system

I'm searching a C# component or code snipped that does something like that:
I want to inform new users about the most important program functions if he opens a new window for example.
It should be a box showing text (formated if possible) that is of course not modal and has some mechanism to 'go out of the way' if the user enters the textbox area. So that he can access what's underneath it. Alternativly the window could also stick to the border of the window, but there needs to be a way that this also works if the window is maximized.
So I want to present him with a short introduction of what he can do in every corner of my app most painlessly.
Thank you!
I use a "bar" at the top of every window to display some information about the current window/dialog.
Use tooltips. They can be programmatically controlled, and you can have them appear at will. You'll need to add the functionality to your app to keep track of what tooltips have been shown to the user already.
You can add a "balloon" style by setting the IsBalloon property to true.
You can also replace them with smaller descriptions for when the user wants to hover over the control and have them displayed again.
I'm already using tooltips heavily. However, they aren't very practical when displaying bigger amounts of data and they are bound to specific user actions.
Have you considered having a contextual menu for each form / page which contains links to Adobe Captivate style presentations for each available task? That way the user can investigate an example of how to achieve a task relating to what they are trying to achieve from within the application / site.
This approach would require a good deal of maintenance and management if your code changes regularly but coordinating it with a training department can provide rich help features in your application.
See http://www.adobe.com/products/captivate/ for more information.

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