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Fewer system tray icons?

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jdd:
 :-[My apologies.  You're right, Josh.  It looks like all the links are broken.   :huh: I found a few places where it can be purchased but :( it looks like no free trials are to be had.  ....I should have checked first.   Sorry!

Josh:
I just purchased PS Tray Factory. The program offered a 20 day trial, but after having it installed for a single day, I found it to be the most versatile and well programmed application of its kind. The ability to assign shortcut keys to perform clicking and right clicking of an icon in the tray is genious. This is well worth its asking price and according to the author with correspondence via email, all updates to the program are free for users who register now. He said he is considering moving to the "Pay for major upgrades" licensing scheme, but for now all users who register will get free upgrades. This is a winner in my book and I think mouser should try and get some donated copies for the users of this site. Great find!

Carol Haynes:
http://www.xdesksoftware.com/systrayx.html
-skywalka (October 03, 2005, 01:11 PM)
--- End quote ---

I have been using this for a while now and have found it very useful - doesn't seem buggy or anything to me just solid stuff - also allows you to manage auto start items neatly and has a configurable interface (including hot key assignment). Well worth a look.

Here are some screen shots (click on the screenshot to see full size version and then use the browser back button to return here) ...

A single icon is added to the tray bar (which can be made invisible too and accessed via a hotkey instead). The tray icon menu looks something like:

Fewer system tray icons?

but note that all the items in there can be made visible/invisible and they work exactly as the original tray icons would have worked. You can also manage which icons appear in the main tray or in this menu version.

Here are the settings options for the application:

Fewer system tray icons?
Fewer system tray icons?
Fewer system tray icons?
Fewer system tray icons?

skywalka:
I would like a program like SysTrayX that can detect when a program's system tray icon changes.

For example I'd only like to be able to see my modem's icon when it has changed from the connected to the "no connection" icon.  I don't need to see the icon that tells me it is connected.

I only wish to see the MSN Messenger icon when the service is disconnected.

etc

Josh:
I won a free copy of SysTrayX via DC.com and I thought it was a great program, but after trying PSTray, i was blown away. The interface is simply outstanding, the way it detects tray programs is excellent. Its much more accurate in detecting applications in the system tray. SysTrayX left me trying to figure out why some icons would just not show up in the system tray despite settings I changed, and it also left me wondering why some icons always displayed in the system tray despite my setting the application to hide them. PS Tray has some nice options that systrayx does not, such as the ability to send mouse clicks to the tray icons via hotkeys, or a way to restore all tray icons via a hotkey. Customization is a big plus to me in any application, and ps tray supercedes SysTrayX's ability

One thing that won me over with PS Tray was the authors responsiveness. Upon initially winning SysTrayX, I immediately submitted some feature requests and received a response about 2-3 days later. A few weeks later, I submitted a few more changes (13JAN2006) and still have yet to receive a response to my 3 different emails since that time. The PS Tray author, on the other hand, has responded to every one of my emails within 24 hours and has displayed the utmost professionalism.

And as I said in my above post, another thing that won me over with PS Tray, was their upgrade policy. If there is another version released, it will be provided free to the user. With SysTrayX, you have to purchase 12 month subscriptions for upgrades. With that policy, if you pay and there are no upgrades, you have thrown away money. I am a firm believer in certain applications being on a "Pay once for lifetime upgrades" policy. These types of applications are the ones that seem pretty much feature complete, the ones that might only require an occasional bug fix every now and then. However, other apps are perfectly understandable to be placed on a subscription based upgrade plan. A tray manager is one of the applications that should be pay once since its functions can only be expanded so far.

Anyways, I've said my piece. If you have a chance, try out both apps, I think you will find PS Tray to be a much nicer choice due to its much better UI and the vast majority of options that you are provided with.

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