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Superbar posts

Filed under: Windows, Mozilla, Browsers

Firefox 3.7's Windows 7 shell features continue taking shape

Windowsby Lee Mathews Jan 7th 2010

While Mozilla's release schedule may have hit some snags lately, Firefox developers keep chugging along. Though Windows 7 shell integration features have taken a back seat in 3.6, they're alive and kicking in the 3.7 pre-alpha.

Jump List support is much more complete now, and it's also highly customizable. The about:config page now includes preferences for each group on the list -- tasks, recent pages, and frequently visited pages. You're also able to specify the maximum number of items you want displayed in each list. To locate the Windows 7 preferences, just type taskbar into the config filter box.

Aero Peek and Superbar thumbnails, unfortunately, still seem to be experiencing the spinning wheel problem. No image appears, and the Aero Peek preview shows only an empty gray window. Personally, I'd rather just be able to click back to my Firefox window anyway -- and not have to hover and choose a tab first.

If you'd like to take the Firefox 3.7 pre-alpha for a spin, download it from the Mozilla FTP.

Tags: alpha, firefox 3.7, Firefox3.7, jump list, JumpList, superbar, windows 7, Windows7

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Open Source, Windows x64

JumpLaunch turns your Quick Launch folder into a Windows 7 Jump List

Windowsby Lee Mathews Dec 21st 2009

Plenty of people were thrown off by the Quick Launch toolbar's disappearance from Windows 7. It hadn't actually disappeared, per se - it's just hiding where you're not likely to notice it.

You can handle this a couple of different ways. The Superbar still supports toolbars, so you can right click it, choose toolbars -> new toolbar and paste "%appdata%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick launch" in the folder box. That's a pretty Windows 95 way to do it, though.

Why not quickly convert your Quick Launch folder to a Windows 7 Jump List?

JumpLaunch is a small, portable app designed to do just that. Download and unzip the archive to a folder on your PC, launch the app, and you're presented with a window containing all the shortcuts currently residing in your hidden Quick Launch folder. Adding other items is as simple as drag-and-drop.

JumpLaunch is a free download, is tailor made for Windows 7, and works with both the 32 and 64-bit builds.

Tags: jump list, jumplist, quick launch, QuickLaunch, superbar, taskbar

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware, Windows x64

T3Desk is a slick, 3D window manager with Aero Peek support

Windowsby Lee Mathews Dec 15th 2009

I'm not sure I'd ever go for the kind of 3D desktop BumpTop implements, but I don't mind seeing a little imaginary depth rendered on my 2D Windows desktop.

Enter T3Desk, a Window manager which does exactly that. It's a bit of an alt-tab replacement and reminiscent of the Window arranging wizardry provided by Compiz.

One of my favorite features of T3Desk is that all applications you minimize are grouped in the T3 taskbar icon on Windows 7. Hover over it, and you'll get thumbnail previews of each app. Hover a specific thumbnail, and Aero Peek kicks in to display the program's shrunken 3D view.

Customization options abound, from zoom, perspective angle, and animation settings to custom sounds and hotkey support. I'd like to be able to customize the hotkeys as well, but it's a small shortcoming - the default ctrl + \ works nicely. Have a few applications you'd prefer not to include in a bulk minimize? No problem - simply add them to your exclude list.

T3Desk worked flawlessly on my Windows 7 x64 install, and the developers report that it will work on everything back to Windows 95. Nice!

Tags: 3d, aero peek, AeroPeek, alt-tab, desktop, manager, superbar, switching, task, window, windows 7, Windows7

Filed under: Windows, Freeware

Skin your Windows 7 taskbar without patching with AeroWorks

Windowsby Lee Mathews Dec 1st 2009


Everyone loves a little skin - for their apps, that is.

Want a simple way to tweak your Windows 7 superbar? Try AeroWorks, a simple theming program created by DeviantArt user Solo-Dev.
It ships with seven skins which can be previewed with one click and applied with another. They're only active while AeroWorks is running, so be sure to click the green minimize arrow and not the red x after making a change.

The creators plans include releasing three versions once AeroWorks is complete - free, basic, and ultimate. While the free version likely won't support much more than what you see here, I did find that you can at least modify the existing skins using your favorite editor. You have to browse to the AeroWorks\skins folder first and take ownership of the files you want to edit first, but then you're good to go.

No system file patching is required, and it only uses about 8MB of memory (which you can probably spare).

I do have two complaints. First, it does't work well with a vertical superbar. You can get decent results if you do a fair bit of editing yourself, but out-of-the-box it's nothing to get excited about. Second, the program's window is over-Aeroed and very hard to read on light backgrounds. I had to change my wallpaper in order to be able to read what I was clicking on.

Complaints aside, AeroWorks is a nice, low-impact way to customize your Windows 7 superbar.

[via Into Windows]

Tags: aero, customize, skin, superbar, taskbar, theme, tweak, windows 7, Windows7

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware, Windows x64

7 Taskbar Tweaker gives you more control over the Windows 7 superbar

Windowsby Lee Mathews Nov 5th 2009

The Windows 7 superbar sports some very cool improvements over the old Windows taskbar. But suppose you want to customize your taskbar a bit. Say, for example, you find the close buttons just a bit too small to be practical. What then?

Why not set your middle mouse button to close using 7 Taskbar Tweaker? By default, middle-clicking a superbar icon in Windows 7 opens a new instance of that program, the same way shift +left click does. I don't need to do that very often and holding shift really isn't an inconvenience for me.

On the flip side, I close windows and tabs from the superbar all the time. Right click -> close all windows works, but why not make use of your scroll wheel's clicking ability?

Taskbar Tweaker also allows you to change other superbar click actions. Another change I've made is swapping the default left click to open previews to cycling through windows/tabs. It's a welcome switch if your web browser happens to support per-tab thumbnails.

You can also use the app to disable thumbail previews if you choose, and the settings menu provides options to run at startup, hide the main window, and even hide the tray icon if you like keeping clutter to a minimum.

7 Taskbar Tweaker is a free download and versions are available for both 32 and 64-bit Windows 7.

Thanks for the tip, Miklos!

Tags: superbar, taskbar, tweak, windows 7, Windows7

Filed under: Microsoft, Mozilla, Browsers

Firefox 3.6 has juicy Superbar integration with Windows 7 (and you can disable it)

by Sebastian Anthony Nov 1st 2009



Yesterday I told you about the new Firefox 3.6 Beta -- and today, I can show you a neat bit of Windows 7 integration. Windows 7 uses Microsoft's Aero window manager and theme -- you've probably heard about it, or learnt to hate it in Vista -- and in it there's a cool technology called 'Aero Peek'. As you can see in the screenshot above, in Firefox 3.6 Beta, Aero Peek is now fully enabled, and smoother than its implementation in 3.6b1pre.

Aero Peek lets you see what's going on in a particular program without having to actually click anything -- you can just mouse-over it on the alt-tab running-programs menu or on the Superbar. In Firefox 3.5 this works for the Firefox window itself, but not the tabs within. Now, in 3.6 Beta, you can see what's going on in any tab by hovering your mouse over the thumbnail. I do wonder if this requires massive disk-swapping though, or if it takes snapshots -- but I'm pretty sure Aero shows you the window contents in real-time. Either way, it's cool, and beats the hell out of tabbing through 20 different tabs to find what you're looking for.

Those of you that are already using 3.6 might have noticed another neat thing: when you have a bunch of tabs (10+ in our testing) open, you get a "buttonized" list of favicons and page titles, instead of thumbnails. You can still jump straight to a tab or see a preview from the Superbar.

Don't like the Aero Peek integration? You can easily disable it -- if you're worried about the potential performance hit -- just whack about:config into your Firefox address bar and set browser.taskbar.previews.enable to false.

[Download Firefox 3.6 Beta here]

Tags: aero, beta, firefox, superbar, windows 7, Windows7

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware, Windows x64

Add CPU and memory meters to your Windows 7 taskbar

Windowsby Lee Mathews Oct 29th 2009

I'm not the biggest Twitter fan, but let's face it: people sometimes share really useful information in their 140-character updates.

Scott Hanselman (@shanselman), for example, tipped users about a slick addition to your Windows 7 taskbar that you'll find over at Codeplex called Taskbar Meters.

Download developer Jeff Key's .zip file and extract the contents to a folder on your hard drive. Inside you'll find two executables - one for CPU and one for memory. Launch them, and the result is what you see in the screenshot.

The meters make use of the Windows 7 taskbar's progress indicator kung fu. Using the sliders in the ultra-simple options screens you can choose the update frequency and set at what percentage of utilization your indicators switch from green to yellow and then to red. Pin 'em to your taskbar and you've got a simple, Win7-friendly heads up display of your PC's vitals.

They're jumplist enabled as well, though right-clicking only gives you access to task manager (which you've always had by right-clicking the taskbar anyway) and the Windows Resource Monitor.

Each meter uses about 18Mb of ram and worked for me under both 32 and 64-bit builds of Windows 7.

Tags: cpu, memory, processor, ram, shell-enhancement, superbar, taskbar, windows 7, windows-7, windows7

Filed under: OS Updates, Windows, Microsoft, Beta

Windows 7's Superbar in action - is it made for multitouch?

Windowsby Lee Mathews Nov 4th 2008


As Adam reported earlier, the Superbar has been unlocked in Windows 7. Apart from adding even more visual pop to the improved Desktop Window Manager, it adds some long-absent functionality.

Apart from better visual task tips with smooth transition effects, it's fixed another minor annoyance. At last you can click and drag taskbar buttons to re-order them. I've always been a little irritated by the fact that I couldn't do that in previous Windows versions, and was glad to see the change.

Grouped application windows will preview as pictured: hover the button, and the thumbnails expand into view. Hover a thumbnail and the red x appears, allowing you to close (duh) the program.

Read more →

Tags: superbar, taskbar, win7, windows 7, Windows7

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Filed under: Windows, Microsoft, Beta

"Superbar" unlocked in PDC build of Windows 7

Windowsby Adam Maras Nov 3rd 2008

Windows 7 Superbar
Certified reverse engineer and rather impressive hacker (in the good sort of way) Rafael Rivera, of Uxtheme patching fame, announced on TWiT that he discovered our sneaky friends over in Redmond actually did enable that cool new "superbar" version of the taskbar in the version of Windows 7 that was handed out to guests at PDC (you know, that one that Lee showed off). The superbar was demoed during the various Windows 7 presentations, but the general consensus was that the feature hadn't been completed by the time the PDC handout build was prepared.

However, Rafael simply couldn't take no for an answer, and dug down into the innards of the pre-release version of Windows 7 to find that some rather sneaky developers at Microsoft simply rigged it to only appear for certain users with computers on Microsoft domains. Upon flipping a bit, he discovered that the superbar (albeit a slightly lesser version than demoed) could be enabled on the pre-beta build. He posted a very simple walkthrough guide and helper application for those of you that are graced with the PDC build of Windows 7, but still longing the shiny bits shown off by Steven Sinofsky at the Windows 7 keynote.

Tags: pdc, pdc 2008, Pdc2008, superbar, windows 7, Windows7

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