Customise your Send To menu

TITLE: Customise your Send To menuCONTACT: admin@firstwebbuilder.co.ukCOPYRIGHT: ©2002 by Dianne Reuby. All rights reservedWORD COUNT: 415 including resource boxFORMAT: This article is formatted to 60cpl.***********************************************************Customise your Send To menuby Dianne ReubyQuestion : How can I open my file in a different program -easily?Answer : Customise your "Send To" menuWindows "associates" files with programs according to thefile extension and the software installed on the computer.So "myfile.doc" will be associated with your default wordprocessor, "any.gif" will be associated with your defaultpicture viewer or editor.Great - just one click on the filename, and it loads theprogram. What a time saver!But what if you don't want the file to load in its'associated program?For example: my PC has quite a few .html files (web pages)stored on it. Some I've saved when surfing, some I'vecreated. Windows associates these with my browser - afterall, where else would you want to view a web page?Quite often, in my web page editor! Or if I just want tomake a small change to one of my pages, in my text editor.So, load the program, choose File, then Open, search for mydirectory and file, and ... what was I going to do? Can'tquite remember, now!You don't have to go this route. In Windows 98, if youright-click on a file, you get a pop-up menu. One of thechoices is "Send To". You can easily add items to thismenu, so that you can load in a file in the program of yourchoice rather than the default program.Here's how:Open Windows Explorer, and find the Windows directory. Inthis directory you'll find the Send To directory. Click onthis to open it.On the menu bar, choose File, New, and Shortcut. You'llget a dialog box asking for the path or location of yourprogram - click the browse button and find it on your harddrive, then choose OK. Click the "Next" button, and give ita name. If you want it to be the first item on your Send Tolist, you can use an underscore, like this : "_MyProg".Click "Finish" and you're done. Now, when you want to opena file in a program other than its' default, just right-click, choose Send To, and the program you want.Happy site building!***********************************************************Dianne Reuby is co-author of the e-book "First WebsiteBuilder". Dianne created and runs the First Web Buildersite, dedicated to providing ebooks and tips for newwebmasters.Visit FWB at http://firstwebbuilder.co.uk/AOL***********************************************************