I have windows 7 and here is my problem, I have an sequence of actions that I should make once every 3 minutes, it's right click on mcafee icon, and click on a parameter, that's all, I would like to create a keybord shortcut of that, I know that I didn't explain a lot, but I'm open to any questions you would have.
I assume that with "mcafee icon" you mean its tray icon.
If so, you can't do it with a single shortcut (unless that parameter you want to click on has one), but you can do it with either:
A sequence of shortcuts:
Windows key (or Ctrl+Esc)
Esc
Shift+Tab
Shift+Tab
You will now have set the focus on either the leftmost tray icon or the arrow to display the hidden tray icons (the focused item will have a rectangle around it), and you'll be able to move the focus to the other tray icons with the right or left keys. So...
Press the right or left keys until you focus the mcafee icon
Press the "menu key" or, if your keyboard doesn't have it, Shift+F10
You'll now have opened the mcafee's tray icon context menu, where if I understood you your "parameter" is. All you have left to do is to:
Select the "parameter" entry with the up or down keys
Press Return
Or you can probably do it with some kind of macro recording, UI automated testing or "gui scripting" (e.g. AutoHotKey) software . I don't know well any though so I can't advice you on that.
Beware that if you adopt the first solution the sequence of shortcuts solution will vary over time, you can't for example put it in a script and rely that it will always work, because the tray icons generally get placed in different orders and if you have the auto-hide feature enabled every now and then some get hidden.
The automated solution might be more stable instead, if the icons can be reliably identified.
I should also warn you that I wasn't able to really test the shortcuts' sequence on Windows 7 before posting, I have at my disposal at this moment just a Vista, but I'm rather confident it is valid for 7 too.
Related
Is there any way to place the taksbar icons of all the open apps in Windows 8.1 next to each other automatically?
Say I open an app whose icon is on the far left, next to the start button, and I want said icon to appear to move to the far right of my string of icons, next to all my other open programs, automatically.
Is there any way to do that?
Do you mean, for applications that you have already pinned to the taskbar, you want them to move over to the end of the line of open programs? I don't think it is possible to set this option automatically. However, you can manually move them to where-ever and they will remain pinned. For other taskbar settings, just search Taskbar and the settings box will come up.
Using LoadImage I changed the icon of all the windows in a group. However the group icon does not change. How can I get the corresponding group to a window and set its icon?
The group icon comes from the EXE file itself (in the case of multiple EXEs contributing to the same group, I imagine the taskbar has some algorithm to decide which EXE to pull the icon from). There is no official API to change the group icon. You would have to manipulate the Taskbar directly, which is not impossible but not trivial either.
Update: I just came across the following answer, maybe it will help you:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/219128/65863
Update: Apparently the Registry value in the above link only applies if the app is pinned to the Taskbar.
Your issue is this: The icon does infact take the icon of the first WINDOW, not exe. HOWEVER, after setting the icons, you have to right click on the icon in the taskbar, then pin it, then unpin it. On unpin the taskbar icon now takes the first windows icon.
I don't know how to programatically do this to maybe #RemyLebeau knows. Maybe setClassLongPtr? Not sure.
Now when it's pinned you want to make it use the same icon, so set the registry value like #RemyLebeau suggested.
Also I don't know how to explain this, but after unpinning, and the icon takes, if you open the jump list, the icon reverts back to the exe's icon. This may be fixed with the registry setting for pinned icon, I'm not sure.
Wow so Win7 taskbar is so tweakish.
Edit: I tried setting my registry values and the icon didnt work. It might have to do something with: the registry entires that i found for TaskbarGroupIcon all had a data value ending with a comma and a number (ex: ,-4 in %SystemRoot%\System32\imageres.dll,-4)
I am building a Cocoa application that allows you to drag and drop files from a NSTableView to your computer. Personally, and I know I'm not alone, when I use applications like this I grab the files, invoke the "Show Desktop" hotkey which makes all my windows go away and then I drop the files on my Desktop.
However, if the files already exist on my Desktop, or wherever I'm dropping them, an Alert sheet comes up asking if I want to overwrite the files. But since I'm in Mission Control/Exposé "Show Desktop" mode, the sheet is floating in the middle of my Desktop instead of attached to my NSWindow...
Ideally, if my application has to show an alert sheet, while all the windows are offscreen, I would like to bring my window forward and out of this mode so the sheet is attached to it and not floating in the middle of my desktop but I cannot find much information on the subject. I've tried the standard makeKey and orderFront tactics but no dice. I've also looked into NSWindows setCollectionBehavior but none of these options seem applicable unless i just want my window to just always stay out and ignore this mode.
Does anyone know how to bring a NSWindow out of Exposé when in "Show Desktop" mode?
I would like to completely remove the Windows 7 taskbar, including tray and start-button, so that the user can not reactivate it by pressing the Windows-key on the keyboard. however, all other explorer functionality (i.e. starting an explorer Window using Windows+E) should remain.
Is it possible to permanently hide the complete taskbar? Maybe there are some registry values on could change in order to make that behaviour selectable using a powershell script?
Thanks a lot
Here be my solution (it hides rather than replaces or removes the native taskbar - this allows it to work with programs that have a dependency on the native taskbar, such as display fusions taskbar).
disable-taskbar-always-top
Still to solve: [HALF SOLVED]
Eliminate the stupid line that auto-hide leaves with some maximized applications, such as Google Chrome
HALF SOLUTION -
If you move the taskbar to the left or right edge prior to doing the above steps, you don't get the stupid auto-hide line at the top or bottom of Google Chrome. Since the native taskbar is not mouse sensitive anymore, it won't impact your use of hot corners, or multi monitors (for instance I have the native taskbar on the left of my middle monitor, and it does not popup when moving between monitors using the steps in this post).
Okay, I think I have finally - finally - got a workaround that:
Keeps the native Windows 7/8 taskbar hidden for your session (you do have a couple of steps you need to do on start-up each time, or if you manually un-hide the taskbar).
Prevents the native Windows 7/8 taskbar from opening with popups or programs seeking attention (flashing taskbar thing).
Prevents the native taskbar from being mouse sensitive (i.e. despite auto-hide, it will not appear when you mouse over the hidden taskbar anymore).
Allows you to use the screen area that is occupied by the native taskbar (this is the problem of not combining Taskbar-Hide with the autohide setting; you can't use that screen real-estate).
Allows you to run alternative taskbars that are dependent on keeping the native taskbar functional (for instance Dislay Fusions Multi-Monitor Taskbar + [Settings >> Advanced Settings ?> 'Show On All Montiors'])
One Time Steps:
1) Download and run this registry edit to prevent balloon notification popups from the native taskbar/system tray:
Notifications - Enable or Disable Message Balloons - Windows 7 Help Forums
(You can open this in notepad to see what changes it will make prior to installing it, if you want).
2) Download and run Taskbar-Hide from here:
Hide Taskbar: Hide Taskbar in Windows 8 | 7 with a hotkey
3) Set the taskbar to auto-hide
Optional:
3) B) Add a shortcut to Taskbar-Hide.exe in your startup folder, to have it launch automatically with windows on startup (you still need to use the Ctrl+Esc hotkeys to activate the functions of taskbar-hide - though you could also script this if you were really keen).
Startup Folder:
C:\Users{User Name}\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
Steps to hide taskbar after each start-up or manually un-hiding using Taskbar-Hide
4) Make sure Taskbar-Hide is running.
5) Make sure the taskbar is in its auto-hide state (i.e. you'll have to look at any programs that are currently seeking attention).
6) Once the taskbar is 'auto-hidden', press the hotkeys for Taskbar-Hide (Ctrl+Esc)
[This should mean that the native taskbar area is no longer sensitive to mouse activity]
One way is to replace the explorer shell with your own shell. This is the a common method done in Windows 7 Embedded.
In older versions of Windows (such as XP) it was possible to specifiy a shell for each user via regedit. I am not sure this is easily possible in Windows 7.
See https://superuser.com/questions/352865/how-do-i-change-the-windows-shell-for-only-one-user
Make an empty exe file and use it as the file to use in your "Custom User Interface" group policy. Additional information here.
I have found another solution that works nearly perfect for me, by just hiding the Taskbar and the Start button by simply sending both the WM_HIDE message:
Handle = FindWindow("Shell_TrayWnd", "");
...
ShowWindow(Handle, SW_SHOW);
The only problem I have with that solution is that the taskbar is not hidden permanently, i.e. as soon as one element is activated that does not have the focus, which on the taskbar leads to the item flashing in yellow, the taskbar gets visible again.
I'm not sure if there is a way to prevent Windows from re-enabling the visible flag of the taskbar in some way, or a method to hook to the SW_SHOW in C# though.
This is really driving me crazy !!
I am sure many developers out there love this feature, when tool tabs come darting out on mouseovers, like a jack russell on a double espresso, but it drives me insane.
I am partially signted and frequently have to locate my mouse pointer by shaking the mouse to move the pointer to a particular corner or side of the screen, so having things flyout all over the place, especially when some tools have to waste more time painting themsleves, makes me wanna scream.
If anyone knows how to turn this off, I would be gratefull and it would be even better if I could disable it for all of windows.
My thinking is that, if I wanna see something I will click and when I am done with it I will click away, is that really so hard.
Many thanks in advance
UPDATE
So I figured out that this is a Windows-wide delay setting for mouse over, menu behaviour
specified in the registry in number of milliseconds
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\MenuShowDelay.
Mine was set to 8, and is the reason my menus were so frantic.
I changed this to the maximum allowable value of 65534 and no all my menus, submenus and tool windows only come out when I click them
So I figured out that this is a Windows-wide delay setting for mouse over, menu behaviour specified in the registry in number of milliseconds
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\MenuShowDelay.
Mine was set to 8, and is the reason my menus were so frantic.
I changed this to the maximum allowable value of 65534 and no all my menus, submenus and tool windows only come out when I click them
I typically turn those default tabbed tools off. (close the windows) But I think the option you are looking for is Tools > Options > Environment > General > "Animate Environment Tools".