Copying file details from Explorer as tabular text

Question

I am looking for a way to easily copy the file details that appear in a Windows Explorer (details view) and paste it as tabular text.

Ideally, the procedure would be to select some files in an Explorer, make a choice in the context menu (or use a shortcut key), and the list would be copied to the clipboard. When pasting, the tabular format would be preserved so that Excel would recognize the columns or Word keep tabs (or create a table).

I would like to have a solution that transfers the available columns, and not just a predefined set a details such as name + size + date.

Do you think that there is an easy way to achieve this functionality ? I am ready to program in any language if necessary but I need a path to follow. I also need a procedure to integrate it in Windows (Vista and later) so that a few clicks suffice.

Answer 1

1) Create context menu shell extension. It must implement IShellExtInit, IContextMenu(2,3) and IObjectWithSite. Register your shell extension on HKCR\AllFilesystemObjects key.

2) Before Explorer calls IContextMenu.InvokeCommand it calls IObjectWithSite.SetSite. Save Site value.

3) Inside IContextMenu.InvokeCommand:

Site.QueryInterface(IServiceProvider, ServiceProvider)
ServiceProvider.QueryService(SID_SFolderView, IColumnManager, ColumnManager)
ColumnManager.GetColumnCount(CM_ENUM_VISIBLE, Count)
GetMem(Keys, SizeOf(PPropertyKey) * Count)
ColumnManager.GetColumns(CM_ENUM_VISIBLE, Keys, Count)

Now you have array of all visible columns.

4) Extract IShellFolder of current folder from IDataObject passed to your handler in IShellExtInit.Initialize.

5) Extract PItemIDList of every file in IDataObject.

6) For every PItemIDList:

6.1) Call ShellFolder.BindToObject(Child, nil, IPropertyStore, PropertyStore) to get PropertyStore of item.

6.2) For every PropertyKey in Keys array:

6.2.1) Call PropertyStore.GetValue(PropertyKey, Value);

6.2.2) Convert Value to string with PropVariantToStringAlloc function.

6.2.3) Store string representation of Value in you internal txt storage.

7) Copy your txt storage to clipboard.

8) Free all resources.

Update 1

Also you can try to use IShellFolder2.GetDetailsEx instead of using IPropertyStore.

Update 2

In case of using IPropertyStore you can additionally call IPropertySystem.FormatForDisplayAlloc to format the value. For example for PKEY_Size PropertyStore.GetValue return "100000" but PropertySystem.FormatForDisplayAlloc will format value to "100 KB".

Update 3

It was quite interesting task so I created my own shell extension which copies details to clipboard. It can be downloaded via link http://www.shellace.com/bin/CopyDetails.zip