7 Taskbar Tweaker update! v1.5, with Taskbar Inspector

Hi! Today I’m releasing 7 Taskbar Tweaker v1.5, and here I’m gonna show you some of it’s new features.

The most interesting update is the Taskbar Inspector, and here’s how it looks:

It’s basically a list of your taskbar items, and it allows you to do the following:

1. Reorder items within a group:

Update: since version 1.5.1 reorder works with drag’n’drop.

The result:

2. Per Application ID grouping options:

The result:

3. Multiple window closing:

The result:

You can open Taskbar Inspector from the tweaker’s main window, form it’s tray icon, or optionally by double or middle clicking the empty space on the taskbar. Also, you can hold Ctrl while opening it to keep it open on focus loss (and then watch how beautifully it synchronises with the taskbar, while hoping it won’t crash :)). You can then close it using Escape or Alt+F4.

As of other new features, you can minimize taskbar items on middle click, you can choose to show desktop or open the Alt+Tab window (Ctrl+Alt+Tab) by double or middle clicking the empty space on the taskbar, and the grouping options now change in realtime – you don’t have to reopen the windows anymore (and I want to notice it wasn’t that easy to do :)).

You can grab the tweaker here.

Posted in Software, Updates by Michael (Ramen Software) on November 27th, 2010.
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26 Responses to “7 Taskbar Tweaker update! v1.5, with Taskbar Inspector”

  1. sly says:

    Great job, but the 64 bit version causes a “Taskbar inspector: Unknown button type” whenever I try to bring the taskbar inspector up.

    Any ideas?

    • Works fine for me on both 32 and 64 bit. Can you tell me your taskbar settings?
      Also, maybe a particular taskbar item causes it. Try to close your windows and unpin pinned buttons one by one and see if it stops reporting the error.

      • sly says:

        I tried launching the inspector when no apps were loaded (on boot), and I still got the error.

        I then tried unpinning and closing all apps and this appeared to fix the problem.

        However, as soon as I open two windows for any app I get the same error again. Closing a window allows the inspector to be viewed (as long as I only have a single window for every application).

        For example, if i have google chrome open i can see the inspector. If i open one additional window of chrome i can’t view the inspector and get the “Taskbar inspector: Unknown button type” error. By closing one of the chrome windows I can again view the inspector.

        Would any additional info be helpful?

        • Samantha says:

          Hi sly…

          Im having the same problem with the 64 bit version…

          Not quite a fix but a definate way around the “Never Group application ID” part – doesnt help with reordering items within a group though…

          Make only one window open for every ap you want to edit, edit as in the instructions at the very top and then they will be ungrouped when you do open new windows 🙂 obviously you can then arrange these as you feel fit…

          Kinda obvious but hope that helps somewhat…

        • Thanks for the info, fixed in v1.5.1.

  2. MainTrane says:

    Thanks for this major update! Your tweaker just became a lot more useful, not that it wasn’t already a necessity 🙂

    Love the new inspector. I’d like it if you could add a ‘launch task manager’ command to the middle|double click (empty space) options; I had originally suggested it in a comment (couldn’t edit my OP on uservoice) on the show desktop suggestion as a double-middle-click, but feel free to implement it however you please.

    • > I’d like it if you could add a ‘launch task manager’ command to the middle|double click (empty space) options.
      It’s there in the right click menu. Do you use it so often that it needs a middle/double click shortcut?

      > double-middle-click
      There’s no such thing. It’s possible to implement, but then I have to delay the action of the single-middle-click (like if single-middle-click is show desktop, and you middle-click, I have to wait and see whether you middle-click the second time before showing the desktop).

      • MainTrane says:

        I replaced the default task manager with Process Explorer, and I use it quite often.
        > terminating/restarting hanged/buggy processes
        > monitoring my bandwidth/disk usage
        > changing process priorities
        + other various usages

        My intent wasn’t to give this feature the highest of importance, though it would be a useful feature somewhere down the line in 7TT development.

        (I’ve messed around some with AutoHotkey so I’m familiar with the process for implementing double clicks; I was thinking it could simply be another option alongside the ones already available)

  3. Anoxis says:

    This is a nifty utility!
    Launch Task Manager would be great with a shortcut.

    Oh, Window Clippings 3 came out. Are you going to keygen that?
    Would be much appreciated 🙂

  4. thanks says:

    thanks for this awesome nifty tool! I wasted tons of time trying to disable that stupid previewer through gpedit and registry and nothing worked

  5. coren says:

    Hm. Ever since I updated I keep getting appcrashes in explorer and have to shut off taskbar tweaker to get any functionality in my system…

  6. tuxplorer says:

    New version rocks!! Some suggestions/requests for Taskbar Inspector:
    – When double clicking on the taskbar to show the Taskbar Inspector, the window should appear above the line where the mouse pointer was double clicked so we can click in the same place again to make it go away quickly *without moving the mouse*. Currently, one the inspector window shows up, we have to move the window to some place else on the desktop to make it go away.
    – A checkbox is needed to hide display of non-running pinned apps so only pinned apps which are running are shown. Checkbox state should get saved in the inspector.
    – Make AppID a separate column and the first column should be one which fetches the name of the app from somewhere. If app name can’t be obtained, then only the process name in the first column.
    – When resized, the Taskbar Inspector window should save its size.
    – A way to move the Taskbar Inspector by drag and drop or Shift and drag.
    – Similar to group Close action, group Tile Horizontally, Tile Vertically, Maximize, Minimize like Windows Task Manager Applications tab has.
    – Tree control arrow isn’t drawn properly on my 32-bit W7. See http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/6168/treecontrolarrow.png

    • > A way to move the Taskbar Inspector by drag and drop or Shift and drag.
      You can drag it with the space between the list and the resizing border.

      > Similar to group Close action, group Tile Horizontally, Tile Vertically, Maximize, Minimize like Windows Task Manager Applications tab has.
      I thought about it, but didn’t add it eventually because it’s already available in Task Manager, and because I never actually use thees. Do people actually use these Tile Horizontally/Vertically options on a daily basis?

      > Tree control arrow isn’t drawn properly on my 32-bit W7.
      That’s how it should look (see post screenshots), that’s kinda custom icon, not Windows’ default arrow. Does it look bad?

      • tuxplorer says:

        >> Do people actually use these Tile Horizontally/Vertically options on a daily basis?
        Well I used tile horizontally pretty much all the time and Cascade to restore their window size. Tile horizontally is the same as Aero Snap which everyone brags about as the best feature in Windows 7 🙂 😀 but in fact it’s better than Aero Snap as it lets you select the windows instead of putting just 2 windows side by side. You can tile even 3 windows vertically at a time. Can you add group minimize please at least?

        But 1.5.1 is fantastic. Thanks for making Taskbar Inspector appear above the taskbar so now I can close it quickly as well. The arrow looks a little non-standard but no big deal. I thought it was a bug first. This is such a useful tool. Here’s a mockup I made for the other features I requested: http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/8201/7ttmockup.png

  7. tuxplorer says:

    Another little issue: Double clicking on “Date” in notification area sometimes shows Taskbar Inspector.

  8. Samantha says:

    Thank you so much for this extention for your taskbar tweaker! Truly seems to be one of a kind at the moment and so useful! Was much needed, Microsoft should be taking advice from you (or listening more to there customer base). Thanks again!

  9. tuxplorer says:

    Also Ctrl+A to select all in Taskbar Inspector. 🙂

  10. GrrrBrrr says:

    Hi,

    my Avira Antivir says the file is infected.

    TR/Spy.146944.27

    Is this a false positive? Im scared a little bit.

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