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21 Contextual Menu

As mentioned earlier macros and macro tools in the StartupMacros.txt are automatically installed in the Plugins▷Macros▷ submenu and in the toolbar when ImageJ starts up.

In addition, the StartupMacros.txt file also installs the contextual (popup) menu displayed when right-clicking on an image. Other macros and toolsets (e.g., Magic Montage) may also replace the default menu with specialized ones. In this case, re-installing the StartupMacros (using the More Tools Menu↑) will revert the contextual menu to its default.

The ImageJ Macro Language --- Programmer's Reference Guide explains how this menu can be customized:

The menu that is displayed when a user right-clicks (or ctrl-clicks) on an image window can be customized through installation of the "Popup Menu" macro. Any menu has a name and a list of menu items. The newMenu(name, items) macro function allows the creation of a new menu. This menu passes the chosen item as a simple string to the "Popup Menu" macro. From this point you can decide what to do, according to what item was chosen.

Customizing the Image Popup Menu

 /* The "Popup Menu" macro defines the menu that is displayed when right clicking (or ctrl-clicking) on an image. 
   It is part of the startup macros (StartupMacros.txt) and several other macro toolsets
*/
 var pmCmds= newMenu("Popup Menu", newArray("Help...", "Rename...", "Duplicate...", "Original Scale", "Paste Control...", "-",
     "Record...", "Capture Screen ", "Monitor Memory...", "Startup Macros...", "Search...", "-", "Find Maxima..."));

 macro "Popup Menu" {
  cmd= getArgument(); 
  if (cmd=="Help...")
     showMessage("About Popup Menu",
            "To customize this menu, edit the line that starts with\n"+
            "\"var pmCmds\" in ImageJ/macros/StartupMacros.txt.");
  else
     run(cmd);
 }

So, e.g., to add the ability to run the Process▷Subtract Background…↓ command from the contextual menu one can simply add that command to the list of items defining the PopUp Menu. Note that “-” defines menu separators:

 var pmCmds= newMenu("Popup Menu", newArray("Help...", "Rename...", "Duplicate...", "Original Scale", "Paste Control...", "-",
     "Record...", "Capture Screen ", "Monitor Memory...", "Startup Macros...", "Search...", "-", "Find Maxima...", "-",
     "Subtract Background..."));

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