SharePoint 2016 Custom Action to trigger a workflow

Question

I am trying to create a custom action that can be chosen by right-clicking on a file in a any folder of a particular SharePoint Library. This custom action would copy the file into the same folder with the user's login name appended to the end of the file name.

I currently have an event receiver that will perform the custom action when a file is being updated but that's not when I want it to happen. I was able to add a custom action to the right-click file menu using SharePoint Designer but SharePoint Designer only lets the custom action trigger special SharePoint 2010 compatible workflows or load a web page. I need to make it so the event handler (or possibly a workflow) fires when the user chooses the custom action after right-clicking on the file. I'm not sure what approach or what kind of project or app I need to create in Visual Studio 2017 to get this functionality.

Answer 1

I found a way to do this using JavaScript, without SharePoint Designer. I put the following script in a Content Editor web part on the page where the listview webpart is and now I can right click on a file and get the option to "Get My Copy". If you have a Comments sub folder, the renamed copy will get put there.

<script type="text/javascript">

// adds the menu option to Get My Copy
function Custom_AddDocLibMenuItems(m, ctx)
{
    var strDisplayText = "Get My Copy";                  //Menu Item Text
    var strAction = "copyFile()"; 
    var strImagePath = "";                               //Menu item Image path
    CAMOpt(m, strDisplayText, strAction, strImagePath);  // Add our new menu item
    CAMSep(m);                                           // add a separator to the menu
    return false;                                        // false means standard menu items should also be rendered
}

// append current user account to filename and copy to subfolder named Comments 
function copyFile()
{
    // get web and current user from context
    var context = new SP.ClientContext.get_current();
    var web = context.get_web();
    this.currentUser = web.get_currentUser();
    context.load(currentUser);

    // load the folder
    var currentFolder = decodeURIComponent(ctx.rootFolder);
    var folderSrc = web.getFolderByServerRelativeUrl(currentFolder); 
    context.load(folderSrc,'Files');

    context.executeQueryAsync(
        function() {            
            // get the first (and hopefully only) file in the folder
            var files = folderSrc.get_files();
            var e = files.getEnumerator();
            e.moveNext()    
            var file = e.get_current();

            // get user account
            var curUserAcct = currentUser.get_loginName();
            curUserAcct = curUserAcct.substring(curUserAcct.indexOf("\\") + 1); 

            // get file without extension
            var file_with_ext = file.get_name();            
            var name_without_ext = file_with_ext.substr(0, file_with_ext.lastIndexOf("."));

            var destLibUrl = currentFolder + "/Comments/" + name_without_ext + " " + curUserAcct + ".docx";     
            file.copyTo(destLibUrl, true);

            context.executeQueryAsync(
                function() { alert("Success! File File successfully copied to: " + destLibUrl); }, 
                function(sender, args) { alert("error: " + args.get_message()) }
            );
        }, 
        function(sender, args){ alert("Something went wrong with getting current user or getting current folder '" + currentFolder + "'. " + args.get_message()); }
    );
}

</script>