Modifying Shortcut Menus - how do you do it?

Question

Is it possible to modify existing "Shortcut Menus" (used to be called contextual menus I think) to have other items or modify the current choices? These are the menus if you right-click or control-click on something in most, if not all, applications.
What I would like to do is to add items to the list of the "Open With" when you right-click on a file in Finder. I don't want to do an "always open with" but just want a specific program in the list of choices that is not there currently. I was hoping that Finder would "learn" about this choice after doing the same thing many times, but it doesn't seem to be able to learn new choices and put them in the list.
Would also like to be able to put items in Safari's right-click menu.
Another funny thing that happened today is that in Safari, I right-clicked on a link, and instead of the normal "Open Link in New Window" there was the string "localized string not found", and in fact a couple of the menu items had this string instead of what should have been there. Any ideas about this funny "bug"?
Have looked but can't find anything yet to help tell me how to do this or what the "localized string not found" is implying?
Thanks very much...
-Bob

Answer 1

Contextual Menu Modules are special files (plug-ins) installed in one of the three Contextual Menu Items folders in OS X - one in /System/Library/, one in /Library/, and one in /Home/Library/. Existing CMMs cannot be directly modified. There are also some built-in CMMs that are integrated into OS X but are not located in any of the above mentioned folders.
If a default application does not appear in the Open With drop down menu, then select the Other option from the menu. A file Open dialog will appear and you can then locate the application you want to use as the default for a specific file association. If you want the association to apply to all files of the particular type then after choosing the default application click on the Change All button.
As for your Safari problem I'm not sure what is the cause of it, but I would assume something is either missing or corrupted. I would start by trying the following:
Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger and Leopard.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now restart normally.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.0 for Tiger, and 4.1 for Leopard) and/or TechTool Pro (4.6.1 for Leopard) to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
It's also possible that if you've been mucking around in the system software or in application packages, then you may have inadvertently moved, damaged, etc. some essential component.