There's been a lot of discussion in the thread. Can you re-state the request?
Sure thing! Really quite simple:
I'd like to make a few Links that open an External Program, instead of a web page.This functionality is something MC can already do in the Send To > External menu. But that menu doesn't filter itself based on the selected items in the View like Links do, and it is buried deeply in the right-click menus and difficult to access.
I don't think this would be a niche feature at all. I can think of many convenient uses for it: Opening photos in your favorite photo-editor, for example, or a home video in a movie editor. Or just specifying a particular browser that you want to use for some links instead of the internal or system default browser.
I also don't know your code at all, of course, but since MC can already launch external programs and pass them command line parameters based on the selected file,
and since the Links buttons are already doing very much the same thing (opening an external
browser and passing it a command line parameter based on the selected file), it doesn't seem like that much of a heavy lift. And the GUI implementation doesn't need to be that complicated either:
* A new Action available in the Action Dropdown:
Open External Program* When this is selected, the
Base URL field turns into Program Path (a file-path/browse box) and
Search URL turns into Parameters.
Exactly like Send To > External.
* Everything else in the dialog would work exactly as-is. Those two fields I mentioned above should even stay exactly like they are sized and whatnot now, except renamed (and with the little file-browse button added to the former).
If you wanted to, and think people wouldn't scream, you could remove the Send To > External menu item because this would do everything that does, but better, and easier to access. I'd move all of mine to the Links and forget about Send To > External, for sure. But, you know, we people like to scream so... Meh. Also wouldn't hurt to leave it.