Filed under: Software, Cool tools, Tips and tricks
Useful Contextual Menu Plug-ins
One of the least-used but quite powerful tools in Mac OS X is the ability to run contextual menu plug-ins. Contextual menu items are those little programs or accessories that can be installed in /Library/Contextual Menu Items or ~/Library/Contextual Menu Items to extend the capabilities of your operating system by providing a quick way to launch a tool based on some selected text for a selected item in the Finder.Here are some of my favorite Contextual Menu items/applications:
FinderPop gives you the ability to have quickly-accessible links to applications or folders at the top of your contextual menu. So, for instance, if you want to open a JPEG file with Photoshop instead of Preview (often the OS's default), you can put a link to Photoshop in your FinderPop contextual menu list and then right-clicking on the file in question will give you a quick list of applications at the top-most menu. This is faster than having to wait for the "Open With" application list to generate, which is useful if you have a lot of applications installed on your system.
OnMyCommand lets you execute a string of selected text in the Terminal.
SymbolicLinker is a contextual menu item that lets you build symlink to an item in the Finder. I've found this very useful in building lab and classroom images where my workstations have much of their shared data as symlinks to other locations in the filesystem. For instance, Microsoft Office 2004 likes to install 80MB of fonts for each user but I don't want dozens of user profiles each with 80MB of fonts on my workstations, so I've used symlinks to "trick" the program into thinking that each profile has the fonts installed but the actual fonts are located in a shared folder space. But because the symlink exists (but points to a different location), the software just follows the link. I've used the same trick for the excessive support files installed by the Macromedia suite.
FileCutter brings a much-desired Windows feature to Mac OS X--cut and paste. I know a lot of Windows guys who are pissed that Mac OS X doesn't use the same "cut and paste" paradigm they are used to from years of Windows use. One of them actually jumped in the air and clicked his heels together when I showed him FileCutter. (Okay, he didn't click his heels together, but he jumped out of his chair).
There are more CM plug-ins out there. Some applications install their own, like Toast or StickyBrain. Which ones do you use and why? Are there any "must-haves" that I've missed?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Brian said 5:53PM on 7-05-2006
Here are three very useful ones that we have posted about.
http://www.freemacware.com/folderglance/
http://www.freemacware.com/nufile/
http://www.freemacware.com/dimensionizer/
My favorite is the third one. It will show you the dimensions of an image in the contextual menu.
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zxspectrum said 5:54PM on 7-05-2006
you forgot 'Ittec' which is in my opinion the best of...
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Peter van Impelen said 5:57PM on 7-05-2006
Dimensionizer ( shows picture dimensions & dpi )
GrimRipperPro ( removes resource forks, also works with multiple selections )
QuickAccess ( copy or move files or folders anywhere )
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Jeby said 6:00PM on 7-05-2006
I make some contestual menu for Finder with Automator, very esy
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ciprol said 6:01PM on 7-05-2006
How come the contextual menu in my new copy of 10.4.7 (MacBook) already has this copy and paste function?
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George said 7:17PM on 7-05-2006
Windows users want cut & paste, not copy/paste for files.
What is the diff between a symbolic link and an alias? Different terms for the same thing, UNIX style?
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Dimka said 7:37PM on 7-05-2006
folderglance - it really a must have app for Mac OSX and it would fall under contextual menu category
http://home.online.no/~stoedle/YLS/YLS-products/FolderGlance.html
donationware
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Jeffrey said 8:58PM on 7-05-2006
This is not really a CM plugin. However, I think it's related.
Diablotin let you decide which CM plugin to show (both user and system), so to make your CM uncluttered.
http://s.sudre.free.fr/Software/Diablotin.html
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Simon said 10:17PM on 7-05-2006
I used OMCedit and OnMyCommand. it took me about 10 minutes to add "arrange By" and "view" commands like we used to have in Mac OS 9 to the finder's contextual shortcut menus. I didn't even have to write any code. All i did was record the actions using script editor and paste them into OMCEdit, with some minor tweaking.
http://justanotherspectator.com/shared/albums/on%20my%20command/arrange%20by.png
http://justanotherspectator.com/shared/albums/on%20my%20command/view.png
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ad3k said 11:02PM on 7-05-2006
People! This is the best CM plug-in I have found, QuickImage CM 2.4.
View any image by right clicking, you must try it, you will not be sorry!
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/11532
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Ben Reilly said 3:49AM on 7-06-2006
"For instance, Microsoft Office 2004 likes to install 80MB of fonts for each user but I don't want dozens of user profiles each with 80MB of fonts on my workstations,"
I just open word once, so it installs the fonts locally, then remove "Do Fonts" from "Microsoft Office 2004/Office folder" and that stops the Fonts being installed again.
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Macrabbit said 7:29AM on 7-06-2006
PhototoolCM 2.0
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/21447
PhotoCM is a contextual menu plugin for Mac OS X. It helps you to manage/organize JPEG photo image created by digital cameras.
Rotating an image without having to open an application is just great.
Not yet available for intel macs.
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big steve said 12:08PM on 7-06-2006
PhotoTool, listed directly above is amazing. It's one of the few programs that does lossless jpeg rotates, allows you to batch rename files (faster than the similar automator script I sometimes use for other filetypes), view EXIF data, etc etc.
[ http://free.abracode.com/cmworkshop/file_utils.html ]
The FileUtil from abracode (the On My Command people) allows you to copy filepath and set creator, but does one thing that I used to hate opening terminal to do - TOUCH. If you've been downloading .sit or .zip files and the folders they generate seem empty, usually you have to touch them to update the directories. This does it in a CMM, which is a grea time saver.
[ http://www.pixture.com/software/macosx.php ]
Pixture used to be king of the 32pixel icons.... and they created my favorite CMM back in like the 10.1 days - FinderICON CM. It allows you to copy, paste, and clear icons with a right-click instead of having to go to get info (yes, + C does copy the icon these days...) which is pretty cool for a GUI junkie like me. You can also create a STOCK, or a bank of icons you use a lot to paste from and copy to. very very cool.
Also, lets not forget automator CMMs. I have scripts to set desktop BG (like in windows) from selected image, batch file rename, edit IPTC data, un/mount disks and set prefs based on mounted disks, create email with selected files attached, send to blog, etc etc... Lots of fun.
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Histrionic said 10:19PM on 7-06-2006
If you put the Microsoft fonts into /Library/Fonts—rather than the in the same relative location in a user's home directory—the Office First Run utility leaves them there and doesn't copy them to subsequent home directories.
This has been documented, and last I knew, was in the official deployment guide—the Office Resource Kit (ORK)—available at MacTopia.
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Adam Christianson said 10:24PM on 7-06-2006
I just found this one and it is awesome. ImageViewerCMPlugin, http://www.astrok-software.com/en/imageviewer.html
Allows you to view all the images within a directory and its subdirectories, supporting dozens of formats. Get around Apple's 100 image limit with the Finder "View as Slideshow" feature as well as offers tons of other functionality like full EXIF support.
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Greg Weston said 2:16PM on 7-17-2006
For George (post 6): Symlinks and aliases are abstractly similar but with a couple of interesting quirks in the details of implementation and behavior. A symlink is basically just a file that contains a path to another file and is understood by the shell(s) to be a reference. But it is, effectively, a hard-coded path. If it crosses file systems and the volume isn't mounted exactly the same next time it will break. An alias will default to path, but also tracks the volume robustly and the file reference number (think inode) on the volume so it can track actual files (even when they move) rather than simply referencing other directory entries.
For ciprol (post 5): As George mentioned, what FileCutter adds is the ability to _cut_ a file, with the resulting paste being a move rather than a duplication. There's also, as you might have inferred, the ability to copy a file and then paste a reference to it into the destination.
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