I'm rather new to WinStep and so far am impressed.

However, I'm having trouble with something I'd like some help on.

I'm using Excel 2010, and when I open a document I get a single thumbnail in my WinStep taskbar which says "Microsoft Excel - [docname1]". So far so good.

But if I open a second document it shows three thumbnails. The first thumbnail is "Microsoft Excel - [docname2]", which it turns out is the active document. The second one is simply [docname1] with the third named {docname2]. They all three have the excel logo and offer nice previews.

But I really only have two documents open, not three. I am fairly computer savvy and tried tried a number of ideas to no avail so I'm now looking for an expert.

Note that in the Windows taskbar it correctly shows up as two documents, not three, called [docname1] and [docname2].

Any ideas on how to lose the redundant thumbnail?


Dennis

I just checked mine and have same problem on Win7 64 bit. Also, if I hover over the first (active) thumbnail, After a bit I get a fullscreen preview. Hovering over either of the other two after previewing the first shows no preview at all. If I go right to either and hover, all I get is a fullscreen preview of the active document. IF I click on them the correct document will take focus and appear.

Thanks. Yes, I forgot to mention I was using win 7, 64 bit as well. I also have the preview phenomenon but it seems to be intermittent.

I'm curious if this behavior is only experienced on win 7 or if it can be replicated on both. I'll try it on my work computer later today which has windows xp.


Dennis

It's been there forever, or rather, since the Microsoft Office theme decided to bend the rules a bit and implement a 'hack' to show multiple documents on the Windows taskbar (we're talking, what, Office 2003 here or even a previous version?).

I don't think of this as a biggie, it doesn't bother me at all.

Obviously this bothers me more than you.

The odd thing about what you said, Jorge, is that I only see this behavior with Excel. When I open multiple documents in Word, PowerPoint, or Publisher it behaves properly (Access only allows one document open at a time). So maybe they stopped using the hack in the other three office programs but left excel alone?

I'm curious what the windows taskbar does to reflect both excel and the other programs differently? And how hard would it be to match how the windows task bar handles it?


Thanks!

Dennis

Good question. Since the Windows Shell team and the Office team are both part of Microsoft, they probably came to an agreement on how to handle their hack.

The NextSTART taskbar follows the official rules for which windows should appear on the taskbar and which not.

On Windows 7 you can also see a similar problem with the *Windows* taskbar and Windows Live Messenger, where you also get two window thumbnails, one of them showing your photo and status and the other the actual LM window. Not sure if it is on purpose or not, but if it is it doesn't make much sense to me.

I can't believe how quickly you respond to posts, and how on top of things you are! It's amazing.

So.... speaking of hacks, how hard would it be for you to create a cheat that checks to see if the app is excel, or Live, and "corrects" the disply in the taskbar?

Sorry, but it "isn't right" the way it is....


Dennis

Oh, and by the way, I checked my XP system at work and it seems to be solely a problem with excel. The other office apps display correctly.

Dennis

I don't know, I would have to check, and creating the 'cheat' is not the issue. The problem with this type of 'fixes' on things that are (and have been) working correctly for years, is that you run the risk of introducing an even worse bug by accident.

For instance, just the other day a user suggested that left clicking again (toggling) the currently active tab header of an open Shelf should 'minimize' the Shelf, thus preventing the user from having to go all the way to the right mini-tab to accomplish the same thing.

This made perfect sense and was easy to add, so I implemented this feature right away.

A week later somebody noticed that this interfered with (and indeed prevented)the ability to double click a Shelf tab header to expand it to full size. A more subtle bug might take a lot longer to be noticed - now imagine if I had made an official relase before this new bug - which was introduced by an apparently harmless new feature - came to light.

That makes sense. If I was in your shoes I'd be cautious about adding these types of 'fixes', too. ANY change can have unintended consequences.

Can you think of a way I could do it myself using the task exclusions feature? I can't get it to only exclude the one 'bad' thumbnail -- it wants to exclude them all.

Failing that, since this is something that would seem to affect everyone using Microsoft Office (and that's a lot of people), would you consider seeing what it would take to work around the 'problem'? Restricting the fix from only being active when multiple Excel documents are open would seem to minimize the potential damage.

But what do I know? I am a casual programmer at best.

Dennis

Yeah, This doesn't worry me too much either. I usually use the Win7 taskbar. (but being a Gemini, I change things alot!) M$ is big for making rules and not following them in all apps.