Filed under: Windows, Freeware
Taskbar Shuffle Tweaks Your Windows Taskbar
by Lee Mathews Jul 17th 2008 at 3:00PM
There are plenty of things the Windows shell does really well, but there are other relatively minute details that have been overlooked since Windows 95 that really piss us off - like the ability to click and drag taskbar buttons.Thankfully, this 600k app that will let you do just that. Taskbar Shuffle is 32-bit Windows-only (it works on all versions, 95 to Vista), obviously, and it gives you free reign over your taskbar buttons and system tray icons. Yes, at long last you can drag them all around to your heart's content.
We first looked at Taskbar Shuffle in 2006, but it's such a simple app with such great purpose that it deserves another look.
There are a couple added features as well, like the ability to middle-click to close a task button or group and tweaking for the "group similar buttons" function. Several improvements have been made since 2.0: settings are no longer stored in the registry, shuffling buttons in a group is possible, and it is now portable (and we love portable).
Of course you're going to give up a few resources, but the cost is minimal. Taskbar Shuffle uses only 5mb of memory barely any CPU. It's a tradeoff we're willing to make to gain some long-awaited functionality.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Haplo said 3:42PM on 7-17-2008
And then Taskix only uses 832KB.
http://taskix.robustit.com/
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Lee Mathews said 3:42PM on 7-17-2008
Pro tip...I'll have to check it out!
Brad said 4:19PM on 7-17-2008
Agreed
harmx said 8:08PM on 7-17-2008
Been using Taskbar Shuffle since 2006 which is flashier, but this is definitely a good call!
Deof Movestofca said 8:36AM on 8-04-2008
Of the three (including Xneat and Taskix), only Taskbar Shuffle supports pre-XP systems, though.
Basheer said 4:05PM on 7-17-2008
Another big difference between Taskix and Task Bar Shuffle other than memory usage is the fact that if you hold down the control button, you can reorder your tray icons as well.
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Mysterius said 12:50AM on 7-18-2008
You may want to make it clearer which one it is that allows you to shuffle tray icons. ;)
For the record, it's Taskbar Shuffle.
miro said 7:45PM on 7-17-2008
I used Taskbar Shuffle for a long time and liked it but recently found Xneat ( http://www.xneat.com/windows-manager/ ). Does the same thing as Taskbar Shuffle but lets you send windows to the systray as well. Unfortunately there isn't a button to do it. You have to right click on the title bar but still very effective.
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superrrguy said 9:59PM on 7-17-2008
Xneat for me as well.
Besides sorting taskbar buttons, it also let's you minimize to tray or hide windows all together as well as keep windows on top and make them transparent.
You can make Sling Player stay on top transparent and click through. Great for doing work while watching tv or watching tv while doing work.
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kingkool68 said 8:02AM on 7-18-2008
This app rocks. Microsoft should build it in. I use middle click to close apps all the time.
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