Is it possible to add a command to the ArcMap Find dialog context menu?

Question

I think I already know the answer to this... which is "no", but I wrote this up so I'll ask anyways.

Is it possible using ArcObjects to extend/customize the ArcMap Find tool/dialog by adding a command to the context menu that appears when you right-click a search result? The command would also need to know the location of the item that was right-clicked.

I see that there is an IFinder interface one can implement to create a new find dialog but I just want to add a menu item to the existing one.

My goal is to provide an address lookup using a user-specified Geocoding service (i.e. what the "Locations" tab does), and directly run a custom identify command at the location of the user's chosen search result.

If I can't use the existing functionality to do this then it's not worth reinventing the wheel as it would just eliminate an extra step or two for the user. I'm also doing this within an ArcMap add-in, so implementing interfaces, registering component categories, etc. is not an option.

Answer 1

According to the product engineer at Esri responsible for the Find Dialog, there is no way to customize the context menu on the result items of the "Features" tab:

The Find dialog was refactored many releases ago so it could be reused in ArcReader, Engine, ArcMap, ArcScene and ArcGlobe. As a result the context menu for find features results doesn’t follow the typical pattern of other context menus in the application. Every command in the context menu is hardcoded, there is no way for external developers to add to this menu. It also isn’t a simple change to open this up for customization.

Also see the same discussion at the Esri GeoNet: https://geonet.esri.com/message/520770

It seems to be possible to customize the context menu of the "Locations" tab. I however did not try this because it's not what I wanted to do.