# Managing user actions (user options)

To create a new action or change an existing action:

1. In the Remote Systems view, expand the connection containing the kinds of resources you want to act on, navigate to the subsystem that would contain those resources, and select Work with > User actions. You can also right-click on a file in one of your filters, and select User Actions.
2. Type the text to display in the Action Name field. This is a brief label for the action.
3. Type a longer, more descriptive text for the action in the Comment field.
4. Type the actual command string to run when a user selects this action. This command can use action substitution variables when your action is run. These variables are used when defining the command string to run for a particular action. Substitution variables keep you from having to explicitly code command parameter values. Click Insert variable to see and select valid variables.

Additional parameters

- Select Browse to search for and select command files (for example, .exe, .bat or .cmd files). The file name you select is reflected in the Command field when you return.
- Select Prompt to prompt the command currently entered in the Command area.
- Select Prompt first to indicate that Remote System Explorer should prompt the command when it is run.
- Select Refresh after to have Remote System Explorer refresh the selected files after the action's command is run. This is useful if your command affects the information displayed in the file list window for the selected files, for example, if your command changes the type of a file.
- Select Show action.
- Select Single selection only if you want to show this action only when a single object is selected.
- Select Invoke once to collect the full names of all selected resources into the file name parameter and run the command only once for all resources that are selected..
- Select any currently defined named types from the Defined Types list and click Add to include them in the Selected Types list. The action will only appear if a file matching one of these types is selected.

You can choose to view user actions by active profile for remote objects on the User Actions cascade menu. You can see both team-shared and private user actions. To enable this, select Cascade user actions by profile on the Remote Systems Preferences page.

Related concepts
User actions (user options)