Ghostbar - aka FadingTaskbar Redux

[Eóin]

I found myself in a mood to do something different recently so I decided to try and rewrite Skrommel's excellent FadingTaskbar. I call it Ghostbar.

While similar in functionality to FadingTaskbar it is quite different in implementation. I won't go into details here, full source code is included for anyone so inclined, but the two key differences are (1) It supports Vista and (2) instead of remaining in the background it installs a DLL (in a benign non-malicious way) that performs all the work so that the main program can happily quit.

The app is less user-friendly than FadingTaskbar but it was just meant to be a small project whose scope didn't extend beyond plain functionality See the readme.txt for details or ask me here. Enjoy.

[mouser]

cool

[Nighted]

Sounds interesting. Unfortunately I wasted 10 minutes not getting it to work.

I'd probably stick with Taskfade anyway (which is probably a lot different).

[lanux128]

I'd probably stick with Taskfade anyway (which is probably a lot different).

-Nighted (June 09, 2007, 11:07 AM)

is that something you wrote yourself?

[Eóin]

I was going to ask that question too lanux. I really like the way Taskfade readjusts the desktop window so that maximized windows take up the full screen. I might incorporate that lil' feature myself.

Nighted that's a pity it didn't work. If you'd like to run it with the '--debug' parameter then instead of selecting start on the first tab go to the debug tab and click 'Install' followed by 'Enable' then if you quote back the list of nonsensical numbers which appear in the list to me I could probably narrow down the issue. Then click 'Disable' and 'Uninstall' before quiting to make sure it unloads the DLL again.

Only do it if you're really pushed, Taskfade pretty much does the same job anyway .

[Nighted]

nah, check the source code....actually, I'm not even sure if I'm allowed to give that out. Well, I don't think he'll mind. The way Taskfade handles full screen is excellent. Anyone try it on Vista?

Anyway, Ghostbar doesn't even run, so I won't be switching any tabs considering I can't even get a dialog.

[Eóin]

Ah, ok I need to test it more , thanks. I'm pretty sure the guy behind Taskfade wouldn't mind, considering he says the following in the readme-

Taskfade is open source, and is under no particular license. I ask only
that if you do anything interesting with it or make changes which you
think might be useful, you contact me and give me credit if you release
your changes.

I'll send him an email to let him know if I do 'borrow' that neat feature.

[Edit for a P.S.]

Anyone try it on Vista?

-Nighted (June 09, 2007, 04:04 PM)

Off hand I'm pretty sure it won't work on Vista just because of the way the start button in Vista is a separate window entirely and not a true child of the rest of the taskbar. That said it would be easy to make this work, as it would be also for Skrommel's FadingTaskbar. It's just one of those things where a small change messes up apps until the developer gets the chance to test it themselves.

[skrommel]

  Taskfade doesn't work with my vertical taskbar.

Skrommel