Order of files passed to context menu action

[zweistein]

Shell extensions such as ExamDiff, Windiff, TortoiseSVN... add a context menu item to compare/merge files, active when you selected two files in a directory and right-click one of them. If you do this in Explorer, the program launches with the right-clicked item on the right and the other selected item on the left. I like this because the right-clicked item is usually the 2nd selected, and in my left-to-right reading culture 2nd belongs on the right side, and with SVN Diff in particular, it means you can edit the right-clicked file by merging stuff in from the other file.

If you do this in TC 8, the 1st selected item becomes right and the 2nd selected item becomes left, regardless of which one is right-clicked. So by changing the sorting order in the directory, you can launch the program with the pair of files in the right order, but it's rather counter-intuitive. Any way to change this?

[ghisler(Author)]

TC passes the names to the called program in the order in which they appear in the file list. Apparently the Explorer passes the item under the cursor as the first item in the list. I don't know in which order the remaining are passed (if there is more than two). I could change it, but find it rather confusing to use such a mixed order...

[zweistein]

In TC, when you right-click an item in a set of selected items, that item is highlighted with a box, suggesting that you didn't only right-click the selection, you right-clicked that particular item in the selection. Then to not pass on that choice to the shell extension is not ideal either. I know, that box is the keyboard focus, and it makes sense to set the keyboard focus on that item even if you don't mean to highlight the item.

I don't know in what order things get passed around backstage. The shell extensions know this and somehow make the program do the right thing. In the unlikely case there are more than 2 items involved, and order matters to me, and the order in which items are listed is the right order, and I right-click the last (lowest) one selected, then I would expect the selected items to be treated from top to bottom by the program. If it is implemented with Explorer passing the bottom one first, and the shell extension treating the first one last, all is fine with me.