IDEA: Second Taskbar On Single Monitor

[letmein]

I would love to have a program that allows you to have a second taskbar on a single monitor (not like Ultramon which is for a two or more monitors only).

Right now I've actually sort of created my own second taskbar that looks good but is lacking the Windows taskbar functionality that I want. I also want to put the notification area onto my second taskbar and solely have pinned and running applications on the Original Windows Taskbar.

With a combination of DesktopCoral, Rainmeter, and RocketDock I've gotten as close as I can get. I've attached a screenshot of what I currently have.

[MilesAhead]

It would be nice if Windows let you detach the notification area as a floating panel.  Then you could just turn Taskbar off and use RocketDock.  You probably already looked at it but there was some stuff on RocketDock site about replacing the Taskbar and just using RocketDock.  The quirky bit seems to be the notification area.  Plus I don't think it allows 2 instances.

I notice in W7 I'd like to be able to restrict running programs to an area so that when you hover the mouse and get that big preview, it doesn't cover RocketDock.  At this point I changed the hover time so the preview isn't triggered.  It just shows the text in a caption. Moving RocketDock along a vertical edge of the screen has the side effect that the icons you want to click most you have to reach way up to the top of the screen.

I wish one of these launch panels would come up with an Icon Order Flipper so you can reverse the order of icons by a check box.  Then moving from horizontal to vertical and back would be practical.

Out of curiosity, why 2 taskbars?

[letmein]

Out of curiosity, why 2 taskbars?

I am guessing you have never used Ubuntu (or a similar distro) before. Ubuntu comes standard with two taskbars (one on the top, one on the bottom of the screen), once you get use to it, it's really productive. I'm a huge Linux fan and I've always found being able to have as many taskbars as you want to be a very useful feature.

Windows 7 has drawn me back to Windows. For over a decade I have wanted to add a second taskbar in Windows. I like to organize things in a way that is convenient to me, and that's particularly true when it comes to computing. As for having two taskbars, if you look at it logically, it makes sense.

My screen is 16:9 (1366x768) - obviously I want to maximize vertical viewing space for websites (and etc). So having the taskbar on the side of the screen is a given. I often run a lot of applications at once - I want them all to fit on my taskbar. Resizing the taskbar while it's on the side of the screen does NOT add another row ((technically) column). Resized: http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/9504/donationcoder.png

Small icons look bad (shadows are crooked). While the taskbar is on the side of the screen, using small icons does not make the taskbar any smaller. Small icons make the taskbar look bulky (for lack of a better word to describe it), not to mention they're kind of small for viewing on my 15' laptop screen. Basically I just want to maximize the room for running and pinned applications while still having quicklaunch icons and everything else. I actually got rid of the start menu button since it's useless to me as I always open the start menu with the windows key.

Those are the reasons off the top of my head, I'm sure I could think of more if I tried.

[MilesAhead]

Thanks for the reply.  The heaviest I got into Linux was Slackware 3.0. I played around a bit with Redhat and Mandrake but that Slackware made you find out what scripts you needed to work in /etc and subdirectories.  Back then some of the mouse stuff drove me crazy and I tried to set it up as much like Windows as I could.  Now I find some of the things Linux users took for granted I'm using in Windows, such as drag the mouse to copy to clipboard.  I hate going through a bunch of drags, menus, and clicks just to copy a line from a web page to clipboard.  In Firefox I use AutoCopy but for reasons I'll never fathom Opera still doesn't have anything similar. I still can't bring myself to launch on single click.  Guess I'll never get the Dos/Windows/OS2 background out of my psyche. 



My main focus has been getting all the icons off the desktop.  Finally I have both my machines set up so that AutoArrange cannot victimize me!!  That's why I've been messing with RocketDock, FARR and some home made launcher stuff.

[app103]

If you want a bar to hold more shortcuts, you can easily do that in windows by making a folder of shortcuts and then dragging it from explorer to the edge of the screen you want it on. (this has been possible since at least Win98)

Windows will allow you to have up to 3 of them (plus the taskbar), one on each edge. The only difference is that the extra ones won't have a start button, tray, or running application buttons.

[letmein]

I'm aware of that in Windows XP, and I'm not sure whether it works in Windows Vista, but I know that it doesn't in Windows 7. Unless changing a registry setting would allow it?

[app103]

How about mouser's LaunchBar Commander? (That's what I used to replace the 2nd toolbar on my machine)

[MilesAhead]

I'm aware of that in Windows XP, and I'm not sure whether it works in Windows Vista, but I know that it doesn't in Windows 7. Unless changing a registry setting would allow it?

You mileage may vary but I tried that approach with my folder of categorized shortcut folders.  Sometimes it took me 2 minutes clawing with the mouse to get it to sprout resizer arrows to resize the thing.

btw I did try Ubuntu but I didn't notice any dual taskbars.  Maybe I set it to use a window manager I was already familiar with.. I don't remember.  I do remember I took it off after a few days and the uninstall system really sucked. Non-intuitive partition undo utility forced me to fix up my partition table afterwards.  I didn't notice anything particularly ground breaking.

[tomos]

How about mouser's LaunchBar Commander? (That's what I used to replace the 2nd toolbar on my machine)

+ some more user screenshots
Show us your LaunchBar Commander Screenshots

[letmein]

How about mouser's LaunchBar Commander? (That's what I used to replace the 2nd toolbar on my machine)

Thanks, I didn't notice this program when looking through mouser's software previously. It looks like I could customize it the same as DesktopCoral and then do away with RocketDock (so one less application running). What's unfortunate is there doesn't seem a way to actually specify dimensions (like in DesktopCoral), it seems you have to manually resize it). Hmm I'll have to experiment with this.

I did try Ubuntu but I didn't notice any dual taskbars.

It's hard to miss. Ubuntu's default layout has a taskbar on the top and another on the bottom of the screen: http://news.softpedia.com/images/news2/Ubuntu-9-10-Alpha-1-Released-2.jpg

I do remember I took it off after a few days and the uninstall system really sucked. Non-intuitive partition undo utility forced me to fix up my partition table afterwards.

Uninstall? You think Windows 'uninstall' is any better? Just ensure Windows is on the boot partition and mbr is correct, then delete the Ubuntu partions. If you're ever in doubt, google is your friend.

Also if you were just looking to try the OS, you should have used the live CD, or installed via Wubi: http://wubi-installer.org/

I didn't notice anything particularly ground breaking.

Having multiple taskbars is not groundbreaking (I didn't say that it was). It's a simple feature that has been around for such a long time it's surprising that it hasn't been implemented into Windows. Another feature that Windows is lacking is ability to extend your taskbar to multiple monitors (which also comes standard in Linux). I understand neither features are in high demand, so Microsoft has left it to third party application developers.

+ some more user screenshots
Show us your LaunchBar Commander Screenshots

Yeah, I actually just stumbled upon that thread.

[MilesAhead]

I never saw the justification for the cachet Ubuntu got from the start. I tried it because of all the hoopla.  I didn't see anything unusual.  To me Mandrake 9.1, now Mandriva, one-disc install kicks ass if you have broadband.

As I said, the uninstall mechanism was less than impressive.  I've multi-booted systems with MsDos, Windows 3.1, OS/2 and Redhat Linux all on the same boot manager.  There's often a bit more to it than deleting the partition to take things off in an orderly fashion.

Seems like the Linux bandwagon is foundering.  I haven't seen anything to make Redmond tremble.  It's nice that it's free and once the kernel got to 2.x it was rock solid, esp. if you had a UPS and a journaling file system, but I think the necessity to support Windows apps to get users to adopt it is going to be the Trojan Horse that promotes stagnation.

btw when I started messing around with Linux you didn't just pop in an install CD and come up to a window manager.  The install brought you to a command line and give you 6 virtual terminals.  You had to configure X yourself and launch it after booting to the command line with the 'startx' command.  I had it running Slackware with 1.x kernels and XWindows on a 486 with only 16 MB of main system memory.  My graphics card had 1 MB dedicated video ram.  Stuff just didn't come up on boot.  You had to configure the scripts by hand and mess with it until you got it to work.

[pjax]

hey letmein


can you share your rainmeter skin you used to achieve the two sidebars?


I want almost exactly what you did

two taskbars, one on the left and one on the right (i hate widescreens)


I wanted the same windows taskswitching capability of a real taskbar, but that's not possible

so I decided I wanted a taskbar with stuff like Gmail notifications, a scratch pad, system performance. i also like to have the clock on the right side dock


any help?

[Uriel]

i use a hot key and i open the "start menu" when i want and where i want....
using :http://www.chrisnsoft.com/download/
openstartmenu.exe

no resident, no memory loss....
(i use strokeit a mouse gesture , very very small but do all where i want)
so no bars and not memory consume)