Below you will find a complete run through of how it was intended to be used. I hope you'll pardon the layout, it's just something I threw together to provide information in the interim.

Step 1 - Identification

When you right click an object and select Associate... you will see the following dialog. In the top edit box you will be presented with the actual extension you are working with. In our example, we will be manipulating the .txt extension. The middle and bottom edit boxes you are presented with two pieces of information that are tied together. The middle box represents the internal name that Windows uses to identify this type of file. It may contain no spaces and may be up to 255 characters in length. Normally this Identifiers are in the form, Application.FileType or if there is no application a generic extension with "file" appended to the end of the extension. In this case, the default of "txtfile" has been replaced with the Object Desktop, Object Editor and is using it's identifier, "Object.Edit.Text". The bottom box provides a description of this Identifier, a Text File in this case. When creating a new extension, these are completely at the users discretion, though following a consistant methodology for your names will ease your headaches.

Step 2 - Icon Selection

After pressing next you arrive here, the Icon Selection Dialog. Of all the steps in the Association Porcess, this is the only one that doesn't need improvement. Simply browse for the icon you want displayed for files of the type you have selected. There are exceptions where you will see just a "%1" in the Icon selection. In these cases, either the icons are included in the file, or there is an independant icon manager for files of this type and unless you want a specific icon for ALL files of this type, you should let it remain as a %1.

Step 3 - Alternate Command(Verb) Maintenance

The next screen following the Icon screen is where the interface takes a serious dive into confusing territory. This screen is designed to allow you to add additional top level context menu items. The confusion here is two fold. First it is possible to add additional items to the Oen Using... menu, but that step is later in the wizard. This step merely deals with top level items. With that in mind, remember that each item you add here, lengthens the display size of the right click context menu. Windows uses these menus internally to perform such routine things as handling a double click upon an icon. Which brings us to the edit box on the top of dialog, The "Open" dialog. The command line displayed in this box is command line that will be used when you double click on an icon of this type. If you use the browse button, you may notice a %1 appended to the end of whatever command you choose. This "%1" represents that path name and file that will be passed by Windows. The bottom list box is much more complex. These are the additional menu items that will be placed on the top level menu. You add whatever items you wish to this level. Each item will have a "verb" associated with it. Internally Windows uses OpenAs, Open, Edit and Print with Open being the default. If you add an item you have a the coice of using these or your own. Open is already taken care of by the top edit box. Selecting Edit/Add will bring up the next Step (4) in the documentation.

Step 4 - Editing Commands

Consisting of three edit boxes, this dialog provides for adding the actual Command(Verb) Description and command line for each top level menu item. The top edit box is that Command(Verb). In our example we are using "Edit". This is used internally as an internal descriptor and if you leave the middle edit box blank, it will also become the description that is displayed on the context menu. The middle edit box is the descriptive text that will be displayed on your right click menu. An "&" prior to a letter will underline the following letter as a "shortcut" key just like the "F" in your average File Menu. The last edit box here is the command line to carry out this particular command. It works just like the Open command line in the previous step. One last note about this dialog, you can reenter this step as often as you'd like adding additional items. If the Command doesn't exist it will be added otherwise it will update the existing command. Which brings us to our final two steps.

Step 5 - Modifying the Open Using Menu

Now we look at the Open Using... menu. This menu will ONLY appear if there are entries here in this dialog. The Open Using menu is an addition to the context menu that allows you to add multiple alternate applications to open an icon with. Rather than doing this on a standard top level context menu, these items are are on a cascaded sub-menu. In order to reduce memory overhead, these items use File/Application identifiers as seen in Step 1 to provide each menu item. This means you will see them listed here as opposed to proper application names. Selecting Add or Edit will bring up Step 6 where you manipulate these entries.

Step 6 - Modifying the Open Using Entries

Once again, you see what should be faintly familiar options. The top edit box is the Windows internal Identifier, selecting this will populate the other two edit boxes accordingly or you can create new ones as needed. If you are using an existing Identifier, changes you make here will be applied to the Identifier. The Description is both the Item Description and how it will appear on the Open Using Menu. IE, while Text Document might suit some people as it is shown here, but others may prefer "Notepad file" or "Object Edit Text File". These descriptions are for your benefit and are intended to work for you. Last we come to the command line. As you've seen before, this is the application Command Line with a %1 as the placeholder for the actual filename. OK will return you to the Final dialog in the wizard.

Step 7 - Finishing up

At this point your changes will be commited to Windows and you will need to reenter the wizard to make additional changes.