Taskbar Overlord Tweaks The Windows 7 Taskbar

i'm starting to think that it's only me that uses the superbar with small icons and text.

balcis

I wish windows worked this way by default.

rozza.m

Does Windows 7 have the ability to switch between windows on the current applications? Something like Apple+~ on a mac.

(I know you can do this through Win+#, but it's tiring to remember which # corresponds to the current app, and it doesn't if you have more than 10 apps open/pinned)

kli6891

or it could continue to work flawlessly.

I'm sure he understands the risks and likely did not make this project his life's work.

thanks for telling everyone what to do though.

gobeavs

lol, am i the only one waiting to see MS change W7 ever so slightly so that these pre-full release programs and tweaks don't work. It'd be hilarious. its quite a waste of time to be writing programs for an OS that isn't 100% released or completed yet. wait for the full release, and tweak away. don't be wasting time on the RC. sure play around with it - get used to it,, but don't write stuff for it that may not go anywhere after the RC self destructs. you could end up with a few hundred lines of code and hours of work that could be useless.

gover57

I'm so happy now. I asked about middle-click to close for Win7 a couple months ago.

JuniorAndTorrie

@Jurandr: I've also written up a screenshot-tour type guide to making it work more like vista/xp did.

[www.howtogeek.com]

Otherwise, what ssj4Gogeta says is exactly the same thing.

Thank goodness for this, it's really been bothering me!

rwm4604

@superrrguy: Hmm, still not as fast as I wanted, and I can't increase the double-click speed any further. Leaving the animations off won't kill me on 7, since more of the rendering has moved to the GPU, making window tasks snappier.

LethAL

@superrrguy: Hmm, I just tried this, and I do believe it's slightly faster with the fastest double-click time. Thanks for the tip!

LethAL

@Jurandr: the taskbar? right-click on the taskbar and select "properties". Now check "use small icons" and click on "OK". Now you have XP/Vista size taskbar. If you want text on taskbar buttons, you can choose "combine when full" from the drop-down list or "never combine". Although I like it without text labels and with big icons. Even if you show the labels and make it look like Vista, you still have the nice hover effect and drag-to-rearrange. And you can still pin programs, but they look ugly because the pinned programs don't have labels.

ssj4Gogeta

@LethAL: I remembered reading that the double click speed is tied to some animations.

Found it.
[www.downloadsquad.com]

@LethAL:

That's right. It's not 2 clicks, but I really don't like that I have to move the mouse to the icon and then to the thumbnail.

Thanks for the tip. I changed the hover time to 20ms but I'm also enjoying having the icon go to the last window and cycling through open windows as well as having thumbnails when necessary.

Is there a way to make it.... not so thick? It just takes up so much space =/

Jurandr

@jayp01: I agree with giving users more choice (even if it's in the registry).
For example, I really hate the way that the time for the window animations (open/close et al.) is completely fixed (as far as I know, and I have looked around). Currently I have it turned off, not because I dislike the effects, but because they're so slow.

LethAL

@superrrguy: You don't need to click twice. You can just hover over the icon to show the previews. For some reason, it's probably set at the default 400ms, just like in XP.
Try saving the rest of this post as a .reg file and merging it. You might want to change the number, but 20ms is fine for me.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Mouse]
"MouseHoverTime"="20"

LethAL

@burnblue:

I suspect that the reason they made it work like they did was so that mouse and touch interfaces would work exactly the same. I think this is a horrible decision. (After all, how many windows users use touch and how many use the mouse?)

jayp01

As the author of Taskbar Overlord, it might be nice if everyone that wishes Windows worked this way would leave a comment... Maybe it won't make a difference, but I'd like to send 2,000 comments to Microsoft that show their users wish to at least have the option. In fact, one of my biggest fears is that a future version of Windows will remove the shortcuts that make Taskbar Overlord possible, forcing everyone to click twice every time they switch windows.

It angers me a bit because we hear all about how Microsoft wants to give users choice. This isn't choice. I don't mind them picking the default values that they think work best for the great number of people. But why they couldn't have made this behavior configurable is beyond me.

jayp01

THIS

"changed the left-click behavior to switch to the last window you were using of a particular application instead of popping up the preview list-clicking more than once will cycle through the list of open windows, and hovering over the button will still show the thumbnail previews"

I sent so much feedback asking Microsoft to do just that. It seems like a no-brainer.. you already get previews on hover. THIS IS PERFECT

burnblue

Thanks. This is awesome.

Why did they ever make clicking the taskbar minimize/restore. I've always hated it. It's always confusing computer newbies I'm training.

Besides the annoying minimize/restore, Win7 now makes you click twice to get to a multi-window app. I just tried searching for ways to add exactly these features!

Thanks again.

nice...thanks for sharing.

Awesome. I'm so used to Taskbar Shuffle now that not having this function felt off.

This is truly awesome and I believe this should be a built-in feature/choice in Win7. Good work Jay!

kerryo

The middle click to duplicate on Windows 7 drives me crazy. I keep duplicating my tabs instead of closing them.

But them you all understand that, don't you?

You could also just go in to the taskbar properties and switch "Taskbar buttons:" from "Always combine, hide labels" to "Never combine" and then its more like the old taskbar.

I have been fumbling with the new taskbar since I installed Windows 7 a couple weeks ago and this program is exactly what I needed. Thanks!

Alex Porter

@slyfoxlp I just read how the program works... There's no way you could add that feature to your program. But thanks. Anyone know a way to be able to rearrange the thumbnails in win7?

Thanks.

slyfoxlp

This program sounds great... I can't wait to try it out. Is there any way you could add the ability to rearrange grouped running program thumbnails? Currently you can rearrange programs on the taskbar, but you cannot rearrange the thumbnails. For example, if I had 3 word documents open I am stuck w/ the order they are presented when i hover over the word icon.

Thanks!

slyfoxlp

@kerryo:

true that.

unruled

@balcis: nope, not this time buddy, I do too =P

Am I the only one who likes the default functionality?

I mean, I agree that MS should have made this customizable, and I applaud Jay for creating this software, but I like the default functionality.

You mean like Ctrl+Tab?

GinnySpider

It should work when I release the mouse button, not as soon as I push it down. I can't drag the taskbar buttons or get to jumplists by dragging the icons up. I wish Windows worked that way by default.

ShambhaviAtropos

in this thread... apparently.

Although i've noticed a flaw w/ the program. While the hotkey script is enabled you cannot move programs in the taskbar. Not a big deal, just a heads up.

slyfoxlp

@gover57: Having a bad day are we?

Kane65

I'm aware of that. The easiest thing to do is just right click on the AHK icon in the system tray (it's a green square with an H) and choose "suspend hotkeys". Then turn it on when you're done.

jayp01