Find File Path from Windows Explorer?

[NickyD_83]

Hey,

Background:

I'm busy trying to make a neat little program that reads files, and gives me information about it which works.

Question:

Instead of dragging and dropping the file into my labVIEW program, I'd like to just have the VI/Exe running in the background, and whenever I hit Ctrl-Shift-M. The file I currently have selected in Windows Explorer, It's path gets copied into my LabVIEW program, and then the program runs once.

I can do most of it, but the thing that I'm hoping to find a way, is how can I get the File's path into windows clipboard, or into labVIEW? I'm guessing I'll have to find a windows DLL to find which file is in focus, and then another to write that path to the clipboard, and then I know LV has a feature to read from the clipboard.

I apologize if my description is hard to follow, but I just think if this simple feature existed, it'd make File interaction just a lot cooler. Can anyone point me in the right direction on how to get this done?

Regards,

Nick.

[TobyD]

QUOTE(NickyD_83 @ Feb 13 2008, 01:57 PM)

Instead of dragging and dropping the file into my labVIEW program, I'd like to just have the VI/Exe running in the background, and whenever I hit Ctrl-Shift-M. The file I currently have selected in Windows Explorer, It's path gets copied into my LabVIEW program, and then the program runs once.

I don't know of any way to programatically determing which files are selected in windows explorer. There are many third party replacements to windows explorer that will give you access to this functionality, but I think windows has it locked down.

[Rolf Kalbermatter]

QUOTE(NickyD_83 @ Feb 13 2008, 04:57 PM)

Hey,

Background:

I'm busy trying to make a neat little program that reads files, and gives me information about it which works.

Question:

Instead of dragging and dropping the file into my labVIEW program, I'd like to just have the VI/Exe running in the background, and whenever I hit Ctrl-Shift-M. The file I currently have selected in Windows Explorer, It's path gets copied into my LabVIEW program, and then the program runs once.

I can do most of it, but the thing that I'm hoping to find a way, is how can I get the File's path into windows clipboard, or into labVIEW? I'm guessing I'll have to find a windows DLL to find which file is in focus, and then another to write that path to the clipboard, and then I know LV has a feature to read from the clipboard.

I apologize if my description is hard to follow, but I just think if this simple feature existed, it'd make File interaction just a lot cooler. Can anyone point me in the right direction on how to get this done?

Regards,

Nick.

The only thing I could think of is to write a shell extension to add this functionality to Explorer. And that would have to be done using COM and therefore C++ (although you could techically speaking do it in Standard C if you know your way around COM).

Rolf Kalbermatter