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No.178 · Overlays

Context Lens

A context menu that is the object opened up, not a box beside it. The row becomes the lens's header and joins the panel through a narrow neck of the same material, and the panel grows out of that neck toward the side with room.

The prompt

The design brief behind this component — reuse it to regenerate, remix, or explain it.

Build a reusable contextual menu primitive whose surface is continuous with the object that opened it. A render-prop API hands the consumer rowProps (spread on the row: right-click, Shift+F10 and the Menu key open it) and buttonProps (spread on an explicit ⋯ button: aria-haspopup=menu, aria-expanded, aria-controls). While open, the row takes on the lens surface colour and a hairline ring, so it becomes the lens's header — the panel does not repeat the object's name. The row and panel are joined by a neck: a 48×14 SVG hourglass (M0 0H48C35 0 35 14 48 14H0C13 14 13 0 0 0Z) filled with the surface colour, with its two concave sides stroked in the ring colour. It overlaps both shapes by a pixel so they read as one piece of material. The neck sits at the anchor point — the pointer x for right-click, the button centre for ⋯ — clamped inside the panel. Placement: below the row if it fits, otherwise above (the stack flips to column-reverse). The panel is clamped 12px from the viewport edges and goes full-width under 480px. It repositions on scroll and resize. Reveal: the neck scales in from the row (150ms), then the panel grows out of it with clip-path inset (240ms), then its contents fade in. Contents: a two-column dl of metadata (owner, modified, size, sharing) and a role=menu list of actions with icon, label and shortcut; danger and disabled (aria-disabled) states. Keyboard: focus moves to the first enabled item; ArrowUp/Down wrap; Home/End; type-ahead by first letter; Escape closes and returns focus; Tab closes and continues. Outside pointerdown closes. Paper and Night themes.

Notes

Interaction
Right-click a file, press Shift+F10 on a focused row, or use its ⋯ button.
Motion
Neck 150ms, then a clip-path grow of 240ms toward the free side, then content fades in. Closes with a 140ms fade.
Accessibility
The trigger has aria-haspopup=menu, aria-expanded and aria-controls. The panel is role=menu, labelled with the object's name and described by its metadata. Roving focus, type-ahead, Escape returns focus, Tab closes. Disabled items use aria-disabled and stay discoverable. Reduced motion shows the lens at once with the neck already in place.
Responsive
Clamped 12px from the viewport; full-width under 480px; flips above when there is no room below. Rows show ⋯ permanently on narrow screens.
On touch
The ⋯ button is always visible below the sm breakpoint.

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