is there a util for "minimising" programs to the side of the screen?

[nudone]

a tingle in my bones makes me think there must be a little program that does this already - if not then after a few replies i'll make a post in the coding snacks section...

i'd like the ability to have more than one taskbar on a single screen. perhaps a left and right edge taskbar additional to the standard taskbar. the only reason for these extra taskbars is that i'd like to (somehow) minimise programs to them.

OR,

forget the extra taskbars, i'd like to just make a window near the right edge of the screen "minimise" to the right edge of the screen - with just a thin button showing at the edge of the screen indicating the minimised state of the window. likewise the left side of the screen behaves the same way.

perhaps (and this may already be mentioned on the forum), the windows at the edges could be "dockable" to an edge - they would hide when temporarily unused and reappear when the screen edges are hit by the mouse cursor.

this hide/show kind of function has been around for years with the way favorites/history panels can hide along the inside edges of browsers (lots of other programs do it that use panels inside a larger main window).

i do think i'm reinventing the wheel with this so i expect there will be something already out there to try.

thanks.

[PhilB66]

If you are on Vista/7 then check out "switcher" @ http://insentient.net/

[PhilB66]

Thumbwin (search the forums) is another option.

[lanux128]

Nubs can also be used for this type of windows management.

Nubs is an application for Windows similar to Sticky Windows (Mac OSX). Nubs is designed to maximize window management and organization with stylish and themeable tabs. It only takes a few seconds to leave, and is painless to use.

-website

• http://shellscape.org/nubs/

[nudone]

thanks for the suggestions but they don't quite solve the problem - not perfectly anyway.

switcher is okay but it's more of an alt+tab replacement.

thunbwin and nubs have their own problems (on my system, at least). nubs would have been good but it's inconsistent - windows tend to disappear off the screen, others are rolled up, just weird behaviour. thumbwin remains in the way too much, and the normal taskbar button are still visible for thumbed programs.

so, i'm still hoping and looking there could be something else.

[PhilB66]

See this thread... and give miniMIZE a try.

[app103]

I am not sure if it will work on Vista/Win7, and if it does you'll have to make your own skin for it to look right, but TaskbarEx allows you to drag buttons off the taskbar and place them anywhere on the desktop.

is there a util for "minimising" programs to the side of the screen?

[cmpm]

Here is a short list with that ability to minimize to the dock-

http://www.makeuseof...our-windows-taskbar/

[nudone]

thanks for the extra suggestions. i'm not back at the main computer until monday so i'll try them then.

using compatiblity mode with miniMize is a good idea - i always seem to forget that option exists.

i had been using taskbarEx for years until i moved to Vista - maybe that will work under compatibility mode too. will try it.

i'll try out the othe docking solutions too.

will report back with what works (or doesn't).

thanks all.

[nudone]

after a bit of testing using compatibility mode...

TaskBarEx doesn't appear to work at all - which is a shame, as i still think this would be the best solution as it provides the most choice of layout.

miniMIZE takes over all the taskbar buttons - so that's not very friendly. i can see it being good, though, if you don't want the standard taskbar and like to personalise/customise your system.

Nubs! works but it is a bit limited when using multi-screens as it will only use the far/outer edges of your screen layout - if it worked on each screen then this would be a near perfect solution.

so, i may try and use Nubs! for a while. i don't think it will provide me with enough to really help - but i could be wrong.

edit:
whoops. forgot to look at the dock solutions suggested by cmpn. i'll do that now.

[nudone]

look like ObjectDock Plus might be okay - the free version doesn't include the multi dock support though. not sure i wish to buy the plus version just to find it's not what i want.

the other docks fail in one way or another - so Nubs! still might be all there is. i'll try the free version of ObjectDock and see what happens...