Adding Entries to the Standard Context Menu

This tutorial explains how to add an entry into the standard context menus in Microsoft® Internet Explorer that executes a script specified by a URL.

Requirements and Dependencies

Developers who want to add entries to the standard context menus in Internet Explorer must be familiar with the registry. Developers should also be familiar with context menus. For more information about context menus, see the Windows Shell API documentation in the Platform Software Development Kit (SDK).

The implementation described here is valid for Internet Explorer version 4.0 or later. This feature is not available in earlier versions of Internet Explorer.

Implementation Steps

The following steps are required to add an entry into the standard context menus in Internet Explorer.

Create a new key, using the text you want displayed in the context menu as the name, under:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MenuExt

The result should look like:
```
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MenuExt\<Menu Text>
```
<Menu Text> should be replaced with the text that you want displayed in the context menu. The name can include an ampersand (&) character, which will cause the character that follows to be underlined and used as a shortcut key.
Set the default value of the key to the URL of the page that contains the script you want the context menu entry to execute. This script can obtain the parent window object, the screen where the context menu item was executed, from the menuArguments property of the external object.
Optional. Create a binary value, Contexts, under:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MenuExt\<Menu Text>

The result should look like:
```
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MenuExt\<Menu Text>\Contexts
```
Set the value of Contexts to indicate which contexts your entry should appear in the standard context menu by using a bit mask consisting of the logical OR of the following values:

Context Value

Default 0x1

Images 0x2

Controls 0x4

Tables 0x8

Text selection 0x10

Anchor 0x20

For example, if you want your context menu entry to appear in the default context menu and when the context is a text selection, set the value of Contexts to 0x11.
Optional. Create a DWORD value, Flags, under:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MenuExt\<Menu Text>

The result should look like:
```
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MenuExt\<Menu Text>\Flags
```
Set the value of Flags to 0x1 to make the script run just as if it had been called through the showModalDialog method. Unlike the showModalDialog method, the script can access the window object of the parent window from the menuArguments property of the external object.

Context	Value
Default	0x1
Images	0x2
Controls	0x4
Tables	0x8
Text selection	0x10
Anchor	0x20

Strings stored inside a resource can be referenced by providing the path to the resource and reference identification in the format "path, resource_id". For example, if you wanted to use string resource 123 in Example.dll, you would use "Example.dll, 123".

Adding Entries to the Standard Context Menu

Requirements and Dependencies

Implementation Steps

Related Topics