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Which one am I using? and how do I ...
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Author:  nunovo [ Tue Jan 15, 2019 1:00 am ]
Post subject:  Which one am I using? and how do I ...
I've been using something for nearly 30 days, and giving it a bit of a workout. Mainly, I've been using the taskbar controls to assign meaningful icons to different networked drives. It's a bit wonky in that it hides some icons when there are certain files or executables open, but other than that it's made a very helpful difference. I really like the configurability of this application.

It's made enough difference to what I'm doing that I'm happy to purchase the product, but what I see on my Preferences window is not what I see on the Purchase page. I seem to have downloaded a bundle, and maybe I'm running two or three applications that aren't bundled in the purchase scheme. So I'm not sure which one to buy.

To flesh out what I mean a bit more, the Taskbar thing is most helpful. I've got it spanning two monitors, and have loads of colour-coded folders and apps open all the time.
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The floating Dock is pretty nice, but I don't use it much. Mainly for application shortcuts when I'm starting up, sometimes the list of open files/folders/apps is easier to use than the Taskbar, but there's a limit to how many I can see in the Dock.
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The Shelf hasn't had any use at all.

I'd like to get the Taskbar working so that it doesn't hide certain apps and folders, and I'd be happy if the Dock could be set to display two or more rows when I have loads of things open.

Any thoughts? Questions? Pointers? Which one is this in the online shop, and can I get some guidance on tweaking the settings?
Author:  winstep [ Tue Jan 15, 2019 1:34 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Which one am I using? and how do I ...
If you're using the taskbar then you are running Winstep Xtreme. Click HERE for a product comparison page.

The dock is intended to host your *most used* shortcuts so you can access them really quickly. Since dock's don't grow scroll buttons nor are they multi-row, it doesn't have much space - if you want to display running applications on it then you should GROUP them together by application type instead of displaying individual windows.

My biggest advice to you is: look into what the Shelf can do. I promise you you will find invaluable once you understand what it does - you can even use it to display the contents of folders in your hard drives (or you can hide desktop icons for a less cluttered desktop and access the icons via the Desktop tab in the Shelf instead, thus removing the need to first minimize windows in order to access the desktop).

nunovo wrote:
I'd like to get the Taskbar working so that it doesn't hide certain apps and folders


Can you please provide more details on this?
Author:  nunovo [ Tue Jan 15, 2019 2:09 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Which one am I using? and how do I ...
Thanks for the fast reply! I'd logged off but got an email notice.

Thanks for pointing out that it's WinXtreme - I'm still unsure which version. Am hoping Basic will do the job.

And thanks for saying something about the Dock. I'll look into it. I have a tricky display setup, and haven't been able to position things in ways that work for me. So the Dock sits over to one side and is always covered by an open window.

With the Taskbar, and in some specific cases, the icon changes or disappears.
For example, I'm using a media player called MusicBee, and a text editor called Notepad++. These have two different behaviours.

With Music Bee, it normally lives in the System Tray, and expands to one of four possible displays: minimised, full window, mini player, and compact player. I should be able to have it minimise to the taskbar, but when I do that, the icon just disappears. So that's one puzzle.

With Notepad++, the icon showing the executable is affected by the customization I've done for files in network folders. In short, if I have a text file in C:\ the icon for the executable changes to the icon for C:\. I know why it does that, but don't like the obvious fix.

I've iconified my various drives so that when I've got a folder with a partial pathname match open, the icon is set to a colour coded scheme for that drive.

That partial match scheme overrides the icon for the executable. So If I have a text file open whose pathname fits the partial match, the Notepad++ application becomes indistinguishable from other folders of that path.

Hope that's explained clearly. I haven't really looked to see if the same thing happens in other applications.

The obvious fix is to stop using the partial match scheme, but that means I've got to create a whole load of drive and folder specific icons.

(By the way, it would be nice to have a shortcut to the icon customization tool.)

So Music Bee does a funny disappearing act instead of minimising to the taskbar, and Notepad++ gets disguised depending on what file I have open.

Here, look at the icon 3rd from the left. That's Notepad++ with a file on the C:\ drive in focus.
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and then without a drive path in focus
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Turning in for the night here, so will see what you have said in a few hours.
Author:  seeker [ Tue Jan 15, 2019 10:26 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Which one am I using? and how do I ...
as a quick google search shows music be has several options for minimise:
Taskbar (Default)
Notification Tray
Mini Player
Compact Player
so my guess would be that yours is set to minimise into notification tray or mini player and thats why it doesnt show on the taskbar
Author:  nunovo [ Tue Jan 15, 2019 10:46 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Which one am I using? and how do I ...
seeker wrote:
as a quick google search shows music be has several options for minimise:
Taskbar (Default)
Notification Tray
Mini Player
Compact Player
so my guess would be that yours is set to minimise into notification tray or mini player and thats why it doesnt show on the taskbar


Sorted. That's one solved. Thank you!
Author:  nunovo [ Fri Jan 18, 2019 3:03 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Which one am I using? and how do I ...
I am still puzzling over the way partial matches are prioritised.

It seems that the highest level in a folder hierarchy determines the result.

When I have one icon for I:\ and another icon for I:\Projects, the first icon gets chosen for both.

It would be helpful to have a way of setting a different priority, but I don't see any way of doing that.
Author:  winstep [ Fri Jan 18, 2019 11:57 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Which one am I using? and how do I ...
There is no prioritization *at all* other than First In First Out. Task icon customization was never intended for what you seem to want it to do.
Author:  nunovo [ Fri Jan 18, 2019 12:23 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Which one am I using? and how do I ...
Thanks, Jorge.

I'm supposing that what you mean by FiFo is the same as what I mean by top level in the hierarchy. The first subpath would be the shortest, and would get the prize.

It's so often the way with programs that allow some tinkering. Someone is always going to direct them to a different end; to unintended outcomes.

Would be worth knowing if you have an alternative way of tagging folders for easy visual reference.
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