Been using this for a couple of months. I love it! Haven't seen any stability issues related to it.

D Wiz

Been looking for something like this, thanks for the heads up.

junkmail

Yes Taskix, found this while looking for a smaller TaskBar Shuffle. Works great, does what ya need without any fancy animation as TS did. Also, seems more stable. TS would freeze and crash if I moved things at the wrong time, never had trouble with Taskix

Braffe

I have always wanted this ability. Just tried it out -- fits the bill perfectly.

Red_Flag

No prob. My biggest thing was that unlike Taskbar Shuffle, it works on 64-bit OS's, at least XP Pro 64 (for me) with no issues. I will be trying it on my Vista Ultimate 64 rig here after I get breakfast taken care of.

derekhaltom

I've been wanting something like this ever since I got used to doing it in GNOME. Thanks.

rubbsdecvik

And I just installed it on my Vista Ultimate 64 And it works like a dream. Middle-clicking to close things, just like Firefox. Love it.

derekhaltom

have waited for something like this ever since you mentioned taskbar shuffle

kseve

this is an excellent app and i recommend it wholeheartedly. back when i still used the default windows shell, i used this on a daily basis. helps keep organized when you have a dozen apps open at once...

garbanzo-bean

Remind me again why I would even need to do this? Why should I care what order my tabs are in. As long as I can click on them when needed what does it matter.

This is not a snarky comment [don't want to get banned.. :-) you know]. I would genuinely like to understand how the ability to do this would be useful to me.

EracMan

Is this a standalone or does it need to be installed?

Confuzius

What's a "taskbar"?

[www.stardock.com]

^.^

cJw

@EracMan: Think about how useful it is to have your speedometer in your car, always in the same place. It's nice to see my Outlook at the same spot, my Pidgin, etc.

hhumbert

Thanks for the great find Lifehacker. Being such a small utility to do something so useful is perfect.

durerca

I have two rows on my XP taskbar and this does not work entirely seemless accross them like Taskbar Shuffle.

I also prefer they way Shuffle displays the button as you are dragging and has a drop indicator. Taskix just changes the cursor.

dpseal

@EracMan:
The ability to close tabs with a middle click is pretty handy. Pop-under windows are a cinch.

dwwoelfel

I was going to recommend xNeat although it appears it has now gone shareware. I will keep my older freeware version. xNeat allows the same thing but goes further by allowing you to set certain windows to be on top, make them transparent, hide windows and tons more features. It only uses about 2 MB of RAM.

jarhead

This is seriously good, cheers!

One minor thing, it doesn't work with the toolbar on my secondary monitor (that i created using UltraMon). Other than that, it's awesome for my main screen!

itunes-guru

Are you saying Taskbar Shuffle used 6MB? Right now mine is sitting 596K on Vista and I've never seen it pass 700KB or so..

synth7

Three questions, any help appreciated:

1) Is there a small app that, if space is available, expands the taskbar items to show their text, and also shortens those that have short names? (And what would be ideal would be if I could create short nicknames for common taskbar items that would be displayed instead of what was hard-coded into the apps.)

2) Sometimes in firefox, Lifehacker's comments don't display, but do in ie tab. Anyone know what plugin might cause that? I have adblock and a bunch of other extensions running.

3) On this machine, checks in checkboxes and selected radio buttons display as white-on-white, making them very hard to see. Anyone know why this might be?

VayaConQueso

I tried this, but I really like the smooth animation in Taskbar Shuffle. Taskix felt a little bit jarring.

pschroeter

I prefer Taskbar Shuffle, but only because I don't use it to re-arrange tabs. I use it for the Middle-Click to Close feature.

JuniorAndTorrie

The middle click to close a la Firefox for closing apps is a must for me, that's why i really use TS.

dan1elo

@synth7:

Taskbar Shuffle is coming in just under 5MB for me. I think that's pretty standard. I still like it, though.

northwest

This is really quite cool. The only thing is, it won't work on my second monitor. :(

Gokuhouse

That's great, Now we just need Firefox's Faviconize for Windows

xmr

@jarhead: I do not like xnet because I cannot hide its system tray icon, and mine is already too much crowded.

KaliTlepolemus

I wonder why Mickeysoft never implemented this in XP... I use this little app since a long time. Another great function to mention is the ability to close windows with a middle-click directly on the task bar button.

And its portable...

FlawlessMan

Great find! I was just thinking about needing an app like this similar to FF tabs. Love the minimalist approach and the tiny memory footprint. Has anyone noticed that the more things you have open on your taskbar, the more memory it uses up...or is that just me?

LoneWolf008

I always used Taskbar++, also really nice but could work with grouped items. I'll have a look at Taskix!

SohniJibronie

Wow, I'm in love. Download of the year IMHO.

teh_chupacabra

I was just thinking about software to reorganize my taskbar, and started to look for it last night.

How is it Lifehacker always has a post to help me right when I need it!?
Get out of my brain!

Scathraax

I've been using this for quite a long time now, and I've always thought I found out about it through lifehacker.

yriafelc

I'd use Taskbar Shuffle if there was a 64-bit version.

Ortzinator

Been experimenting with this for the last day and although I can deny the usefulness of it, I have came across something that I've found slightly annoying. I use VirtuaWin for virtual desktops and if I rearrange the taskbar then switch desktops and switch back, the taskbar returns to the default order. :-/

LoneWolf008

@LoneWolf008: Ah this was my first question, as I'm also a VirtuaWin user.

Posco Grubb

@Gokuhouse: You might want to try Xneat Windows Manager which includes this and other nice functions (transparency, minimize to tray, hide window and more) while staying very resource friendly. So far one of my favorite utilities and I couldn't find any bug or secondary effect, which seems to be the problem with many desktop improvements utilities.
[www.xneat.com]

@VayaConQueso:
1) I don't recall any application like this, sorry.
2) If you have NoScript, allow googleapis.com
3) This is controlled by the desktop theme. If you have a custom theme of you modified the colors yourself then that's probably the problem.

polobunny

@cJw: The less resource intensive version of the dock. ;)

polobunny

@synth7: I'm at 900KB for Taskbar Shuffle on Vista. Nothing close the the multi-MBs being reported.

seanmcleary