gHacks technology news » system-tray http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:11:12 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 en hourly 1 Change The Default Web Browser In The System Tray http://www.ghacks.net/2008/11/29/change-the-default-web-browser-in-the-system-tray/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/11/29/change-the-default-web-browser-in-the-system-tray/#comments Sat, 29 Nov 2008 16:35:52 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=8604 Windows does seem to have the habit of changing the default browser back to Internet Explorer from time to time. Many web browsers do also ask the user during installation if he wants to change the default browser. The difference between the default web browser and an installed browser is that the default browser is being used to open html and htm files on the system. Clicking on a link in a application will launch the link in the default browser.

Browser Tray Switch by Mouser has been designed with a second aspect in mind. Mouser is using the software program to define a default browser in Windows that is not allowed to connect to the Internet. This ensures that malicious software programs cannot launch the default browser. If he needs to access the Internet with the default browser he simply switches it using his software program for the time it is needed.

Another simple application for the program would be to set the default browser in Windows. Many users do not like fiddling around in the Windows Registry and this application provides an easy intuitive way to do that.

browser tray switch

The application will automatically create a backup of the settings during the first startup. It will also automatically detect the installed web browsers (unless they are portable) and add them to the right-click menu of the system tray application.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/11/29/change-the-default-web-browser-in-the-system-tray/feed/ 6 Minimize Windows To A Single System Tray Icon http://www.ghacks.net/2008/11/25/minimize-windows-to-a-single-system-tray-icon/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/11/25/minimize-windows-to-a-single-system-tray-icon/#comments Tue, 25 Nov 2008 08:49:28 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=8521 Minime (via Lifehacker) is an AutoIt application that can be used to put any open window – be it program or folder – into the Windows System Tray. While that is not really something new it comes with a feature that might be interesting to users who run many applications and folders.

Minime bundles the minimized windows into one System Tray icon. If you are the type of user who usually has dozens of icons in the Windows System Tray then you might want to consider switching from your favorite Tray Minimizer application to Minime.

While running Minime in the background users can make use of the keyboard shortcut [CTRL Shift Z] to minimize the active window to the System Tray. Windows can be reactivated by either choosing a single window or by selecting the Show All option.

minime

Users are reporting problems with 64-bit editions of Windows Vista. Other editions and Windows operating systems should run fine. Minime uses about 6 Megabytes of computer memory when running in the background.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/11/25/minimize-windows-to-a-single-system-tray-icon/feed/ 4 Tray Everything http://www.ghacks.net/2008/10/09/tray-everything/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/10/09/tray-everything/#comments Thu, 09 Oct 2008 13:06:59 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=7525 Software applications that have an option to put them in the Windows system tray instead of the Windows Taskbar are providing users with options needed to manage the open applications and folders in Windows. Some applications on the other hand do not come with an option to minimize them to the windows system tray. The system tray is generally speaking the best place for applications that do not require lots of interaction and work either automatically or with shortcuts.

It would not really make sense to place the web browser in the system tray because a web browser is usually an active application that does not do much if the user is not interacting with it.

Tray Everything is a small application that comes in a portable and installation version. It can practically minimize every window to the system tray and provides a few interesting features like password protecting minimized windows or hiding them completely from the system tray.

The program displays all windows that are currently opened in its program interface and will minimize them to the system tray upon double-clicking them. Additional options are supplied to add a minimize to system tray button to all windows or to hijack the minimize button to always minimize to the system tray. This can be configured for all or only selected applications.

Another interesting feature of Tray Everything is the option to automatically minimize windows to the system tray after a certain period of time. Add hotkey support and compatibility with all Windows operating systems since Windows 95 but excluding Windows Vista and you got a versatile application for everyone who wants to clean up the open program windows on his computer.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/10/09/tray-everything/feed/ 6 Windows System Tray Software http://www.ghacks.net/2008/09/05/windows-system-tray-software/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/09/05/windows-system-tray-software/#comments Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:18:03 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=6786 There are several applications out there that can move almost every open window from the Windows Taskbar to the Windows System Tray. Tray It is one of the more popular applications. It is portable, comes with a clean interface and does the job flawlessly. Tray It remembers settings and the only downside of using it would be the resource usage of it.

If you are running low on system resources you could use the windows system tray software Trayconizer instead which uses roughly half of the system resources of Tray It mainly because it completely manages to do without an interface. Trayconizer is a command line driven application that can be best used by creating shortcuts that point to the applications that should be placed in the Windows system tray when minimized.

Trayconizer is portable as well and uses a little bit more than 10 Kilobytes of hard drive space. The user can use the following command line parameter to move the selected application into the Windows System tray when the user minimizes it.

/path/to/trayconizer.exe “path/to/application”. For example c:\trayconizer “d:\apps\firefox.exe”. Trayconizer makes use of one additional parameter -minimize which when used starts the application minimized in the Windows system tray.

The easiest way to work with Trayconizer would be to create a shortcut to Trayconizer. A right-click on the shortcut and the selection of properties makes it possible to add the “path/to/application” to the Target form field. A click on the shortcut would then launch the desired application normally and would minimize it to the Windows system tray when minimized.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/09/05/windows-system-tray-software/feed/ 3 Replace the Windows System Tray Clock http://www.ghacks.net/2008/06/21/replace-the-windows-system-tray-clock/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/06/21/replace-the-windows-system-tray-clock/#comments Sat, 21 Jun 2008 10:56:22 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=5063 The Windows System Tray clock does not provide many ways to customize its appearance and format. The only two options that are available are to display the clock – or not – and to change the time. The position of the taskbar changes the information that the clock is displaying. The clock will only display the time on a horizontal Taskbar and provide date information when the user moves the mouse over the clock.

A vertical taskbar on the other hand displays the time, date and the weekday in the system tray. The best way to create a custom solution would be to use a third party tool like Timekeeper which can fully replace the Windows clock. Timekeeper adds itself to the available Toolbars of the Taskbar which can be selected by right-clicking the taskbar.

The Windows clock can be disabled in the same right-click menu as well. Timekeeper basically can display date and time information in multiple ways to suite the needs of the user. It comes with predefined time and date formats that can be added with just a click and custom ones where the user can pick the information that he wants to see.

timekeeper

Data can be placed separately in various formats. It is for example possible to display the time in 24 or 12 hour format with or without leading zeros. Several information are unique to the application and not provided by the Windows system clock. This includes displaying the timezone as well as day and week of year.

The software adds also visual elements that can be changed. The user can select an alignment for the clock, a text color, background color or choose a transparent background and even the font. That’s great if a custom theme is being used or if the user wants a larger font for the time so that he can see it better.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/06/21/replace-the-windows-system-tray-clock/feed/ 4 Access Bookmarks from the System Tray http://www.ghacks.net/2008/06/20/access-bookmarks-from-the-system-tray/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/06/20/access-bookmarks-from-the-system-tray/#comments Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:38:25 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=5057 It can come quite handy sometimes to access the bookmarks as fast as possible to be able to visit a website without delay. A fast and convenient way is to add an icon to the system tray that provides access to all of the bookmarks. One software that provides that functionality is Links 2 Tray which sits in the tray quietly until the icon is left-clicked.

The bookmarks are then displayed in the usual order including submenus. A left-click on a bookmark opens that bookmark. The real beauty of Links 2 Tray is that it provides access to bookmarks of all three major browsers. The configuration provides settings for Internet Explorer’s Favorites, Firefox’s Bookmarks.html file and Opera.

Firefox changed the way bookmarks are handled with Firefox 3 which means that the user should export the bookmarks into html format once in a while to be able to use them in Links 2 Tray.

links2tray

Firefox is not explicitly mentioned but it’s possible to add its executable in the Netscape field. One set of bookmarks will be the primary set which is immediately available after left-clicking the system tray icon while the other two are available in folders in that menu. Make sure you set the primary to the bookmarks you use the most.

Bookmarks were opened in Internet Explorer by default but I was able to change that by exchanging the Internet Explorer url with the Firefox one. From then on the bookmarks were opened in Firefox by default. If you prefer Opera just add the Opera executable in that field.

It’s probably no problem to add any other browser instead of the three ones mentioned by simply replacing their executables.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/06/20/access-bookmarks-from-the-system-tray/feed/ 3 Hide all System Tray Icons http://www.ghacks.net/2008/02/15/hide-all-system-tray-icons/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/02/15/hide-all-system-tray-icons/#comments Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:59:02 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2008/02/15/hide-all-system-tray-icons/ Some applications that are running in the background are displaying an icon in the Windows System Tray to give the user faster access to the program’s options. While this option is useful for some applications it does look kinda ugly especially if a lot of icons are visible in the system tray.

If you like a more beautiful appearance of Windows you could hide all system tray icons. The programs would still be running in the background but the icons would not be visible anymore. It’s possible to hide the icons using a Registry setting. Press Windows R, type regedit and hit enter.

Now navigate to the Registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER \Software \Microsoft \Windows \CurrentVersion \Policies \Explorer and check if the DWORD entry NoTrayItemsDisplay is already available in the left pane. If it is not create a new DWORD with that name. Now double-click the entry and change the value to 1.

system tray beforesystem tray after

The left image is a picture of my system tray and the left one a picture of it after applying the Registry setting. Note that you have to log off or restart the computer before you can see the change. Found at the How to Geek.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/02/15/hide-all-system-tray-icons/feed/ 6 Taskable RSS Feeds for your System Tray http://www.ghacks.net/2007/02/10/taskable-rss-feeds-for-your-system-tray/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/02/10/taskable-rss-feeds-for-your-system-tray/#comments Sat, 10 Feb 2007 11:07:55 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/02/10/taskable-rss-feeds-for-your-system-tray/ Taskable is a great alternative for online or offline feedreaders, it is a RSS browser that places an icon in the windows system tray making it a very effective method of displaying those feeds. I really like the ease of use and space-saving nature of taskable, I mainly use it to display my most read feeds in the system tray and check on them periodically.

taskable

Adding feeds is really simple. You can either drag and drop feeds right from the internet or add feeds manually by supplying the RSS and Atom url or OPML file. I was not able to find out how to add submenus manually but this can be done by exporting your feeds into an OPML file and adding that file to Taskable. The structure will remain.

source: cybernetnews

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/02/10/taskable-rss-feeds-for-your-system-tray/feed/ 0 Run Pandora in System Tray http://www.ghacks.net/2006/08/12/run-pandora-in-system-tray/ http://www.ghacks.net/2006/08/12/run-pandora-in-system-tray/#comments Sat, 12 Aug 2006 08:40:27 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2006/08/12/run-pandora-in-system-tray/ I´ve written some articles on Pandora before; For those who have not heard of the service let me shortly explain what it is all about. Pandora is a music service thats looks at your choice of music and tries to find music that matches this taste. You are free to add a song title, a album or artist and Pandora creates a radio station that plays music that is like the music that you have chosen. The music plays then in your browsers window until you close it.

It would be much nicer if Pandora could be minimises to the system tray instead. This would mean that there would not be another window cluttering your workspace. Dan created a small application that makes it possible to run Pandora in the system tray. His tool acts as a wrapper application and works fine.

There are of course other means to achieve the same result. Some days ago I wrote a story about rbtray which basically is able to minimise every window to the system tray. This should work with Pandora as well.

Finally I also found a way to import the Pandora radio stream into winamp. You might want to take a look at this article as well.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2006/08/12/run-pandora-in-system-tray/feed/ 7 How to minimize every window to the tray http://www.ghacks.net/2006/07/30/how-to-minimize-every-window-to-the-tray/ http://www.ghacks.net/2006/07/30/how-to-minimize-every-window-to-the-tray/#comments Sun, 30 Jul 2006 17:57:21 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2006/07/30/how-to-minimize-every-window-to-the-tray/ This freeware tool is so sweet. I hate when dozens of windows clutter my precious taskbar space with no means to minimize them to the tray. I especially don´t like it when I´am not using the program for a long time but want to keep it running, for example transcoding large video streams.

RbTray has only one purpose, but this one is a really useful one. It adds the Minimize to Tray command to every window option. I was able to minimize firefox, my ftp program and many more to the system tray. Encountered none that rejected to be minimized to the tray.

Oh, it has one more feature. It also adds a always on top option to every window. The freeware can be downloaded from the website link given above, the download is really slow but thankfully the tool is not that big. Options are available after installing the program.

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