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TASKBAR TOOLS
Here you will find some tools to assist from the taskbar and
system tray. I hope some come in handy.
Minimize Outlook, Internet Explorer, Firefox and any other applications
to the system tray!
4t Tray Minimizer lets you running applications minimized as System
Tray icons, which helps free up space on your taskbar. Main features:
- various ways to minimize any application to the system tray;
- ability to hide any application without showing tray icon;
- the customized hotkeys for minimizing, restoring, maximizing and
launching applications;
- ability to customize the minimizing behavior of your favorite application;
- quick hiding/showing the whole system tray.
 Taskbar Shuffle is a small and simple program, that add a
handy new functionality to your Windows taskbar - it enables you to rearrange the taskbar buttons by simply dragging them
around. This feature can be quite useful if the order and arrangement of your taskbar buttons is of importance to you. Makes
you wonder why the taskbar did not come with this feature in the first place.
Smart Bubbles
Keep your favorite web-sites a click away, on the system-tray.
Enjoy new features in existing web-sites with Smart-Bubbles.
Enhance your browsing experience with notifications, drag & drop and shortcut-menus
Avoid the clutter of the browser, focus
on your web-sites.
see how easy it works!
WinBoss let you hide running applications quickly so that other people will not
notice of what you are doing recently. With a simple keyboard combination that you can set (by default it would be ctrl-x)
the selected application will dissapear, including from the taskbar, Alt-Tab and the running application list in the Windows
Task manager.
To restore the hidden application(s), just click on the WinBoss icon
on the right side of the taskbar. A popup menu will show with the list of hidden applications. Click to restore one of it.
WinBoss icon is a green rectangle, which looks like the Windows Task
manager CPU indicator icon.
WinBoss is also useful to reduce the number of button shown on the
taskbar by moving them into the WinBoss popup menu.
WinBoss setting window will be shown for a split second before minimized
as an icon on the right side of the taskbar.
Several other freeware programs offered by the author on this site.
Taskbar Sorter How It Works: The application enumerates
windows that are top-level (have no owner), and do not explicitly prevent themselves from appearing in the taskbar. It adds
each of the windows' titles to a drag list box (CDragListBox), along with the icon for the app. The user then can re-order
the windows. When the user clicks the Sort button, each window is hidden, by using ShowWindow(SW_HIDE), and then re-shown
(ShowWindow(SW_SHOW)) in the order of the list -- top to bottom. This has the effect of the window being removed from the
taskbar and then being re-added at the right-hand side.
Enhance the taskbar
A couple of tips and applications to change
the look and behaviour of different taskbar area's:
Visual Task Tips is a lightweight shell enhancement utility.
It provides thumbnail preview image for each task in the Windows Taskbar, as seen in the upcoming Microsoft Windows Vista.
It is compatible for Windows XP.
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AlfaClock Free Edition enhances your taskbar clock (tray clock) with
fully customizable clock display, alarms, time synchronization, popup calendar, time speaking and more.
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SlickRun is a free floating command line utility for
Windows. SlickRun gives you almost instant access to any program or website. SlickRun allows you to create command aliases
(known as MagicWords), so C:\Program Files\Outlook Express\msimn.exe becomes MAIL.
Enter a web URL into SlickRun and it will launch
your browser and navigate to the specified address. Run multiple programs in a few keystrokes, jot a note, look up a definition...
SlickRun is the most natural way to interact with your computer.
More freeware programs on the site.
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Tray Commander Lite is a free tray launcher, a light-weight version
of Tray Commander. It allows you to quickly and easily execute your favorite applications, open folders and files, shutdown
and reboot the computer, open and close the CD door, make screenshots, and more.
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FastOpen 2.2 (last freeware version)
FastOpen is a stytem-tray-based menu utility.
It lets you launch your favorite programs, documents, Websites, and single pane Explorer views of your frequently used folders
from its right-click menu. Arrange your menu entries in any order you wish and add separators to organize items into logical
groups. Options let you instantly add all drives to a menu or submenu; insert Run, Find, Open, Connect, and/or Disconnect
commands; and automatically place a separator after a certain number of items. FastOpen is easy to use and a nice alternative
to the Windows Start Menu.
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Free Launch Bar is a Free replacement for the standard Quick Launch bar. All functions
presented in Quick Launch are also in Free Launch Bar. However, the Free Launch Bar is fully compatible with Quick Launch
because it uses the same folder for shortcuts. But there is one huge difference. Free Launch Bar allows you to combine your
shortcuts into groups. This feature looks like popup menus. This vastly improves the management of your shortcuts and save
working space on your desktop. By using Free Launch Bar, you speed up the launching of your applications like never before.
Features:
 Quickly find the files you need as soon as you think about their names or attributes
Use Deskbar, Explorer Toolbar, or Floating Bar query fields for fast access
Receive any file you queried less than in a second after you hit Enter
Quickly show and hide VistaGlance Deskbar with a single click on the system tray icon
Quickly show and hide VistaGlance Floating Bar with a handy hot key
Search for all files, only pictures, videos, music, office documents or using custom filters
Obtain file details, cut, copy, delete, drag&drop found files
Add your own keywords to files using handy Explorer context menu extension
VolumeTouch is a freeware replacement utility for the Windows speaker icon usually
located in the bottom right of your screen, next to the clock. With VolumeTouch you can adjust the volume instantly from any
application without leaving your current work.
Features:
- Absolutely FREE.
- Instant volume adjustment for any Windows program, with special keyboard
and mouse shortcuts.
- Instantly mute Windows sound with key combination + 0.
- Visual indication of current volume in the system tray (next to clock).
- Can choose from 5 different skins
- Easy access to Windows Control Panel for advanced volume options.
- Easy access to Windows Sound Recorder
- Easy access to your computer's Audio Properties.
- Easy configuration, choose your keyboard combinations and mouse mode.
- No ads. No spyware. No viruses.
Launchy is a free windows utility designed to help you forget about your start
menu, the icons on your desktop, and even your file manager.
Launchy indexes the programs in your start menu and can launch your
documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks with just a few keystrokes!. The download is located here and here for the skin forum.
 Tray Wizard is designed to greatly extend user's convenience while working
in Microsoft Windows products family. It provides a wide range of abilities in a task bar system area (i.e. system tray) management.
With Tray Wizard you can Launch your favorite applications from tray menu, Use fixed order of icons in tray, Remove icons
that are not in use, Show/hide icons using predefined key combination, Minimize windows to tray or tray menu rather than task
panel, and Manage session/power state of your computer.
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Launcher is an easy-to-use personal shortcut manager to launch all kinds of files and
programs. Drag-and-drop operations are supported; this means that when Launcher is in "Manage Items" mode, it is possible
to configure shortcuts by "dragging" files from e.g. Windows Desktop and then "dropping" them into Launcher. One can create
an unlimited amount of user defined sub-folders and item (e.g. program) shortcuts. Launcher resides in the sys-tray. There
are also a few free online tools you can check out.
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