Framework/Tutorial/Context Menu Interception

This tutorial will give you a detailed step-by-step insight into a very flexible way to add a context menu interceptor into OpenOffice.org 2.x/3.0. A Context menu interceptor must be implemented via UNO supporting the com.sun.star.ui.XContextMenuInterceptor interface. This tutorial will be split into small chapters which describe different aspects of context menu interception. Everybody is invited to participate. May be someone wants to translate the extension to a different language (e.g. Java or Python) or wants to have more information about a specific topic. You can set a link to this page, if you think that this page adds valuable information.

The reader of this tutorial should know the following

   * Programming with UNO
   * C++ knowledge (Using C++ with the SDK)
   * How to create an extension with the "OpenOffice.org SDK"

A context menu is displayed when an object is right clicked. Typically, a context menu has context dependent functions to manipulate the selected object, such as cut, copy and paste. Developers can intercept context menus before they are displayed to cancel the execution of a context menu, add, delete, or modify the menu by replacing context menu entries or complete sub menus. It is possible to provide new customized context menus.

Context menu interception is implemented by the observer pattern. This pattern defines a one-to-many dependency between objects, so that when an object changes state, all its dependents are notified. The implementation supports more than one interceptor which are chained in a queue. The root access point for intercepting context menus is a com.sun.star.frame.Controller object. The controller implements the interface com.sun.star.ui.XContextMenuInterception to support context menu interception.