Windows 7 needs this on the taskbar

I am in build 7068, x86, and I have 10 items on my taskbar.

Using the Win key, if I press Win + 1, the first one (furthest to the left) opens. If I press Win + 2, the second from the left opens....etc...

Your idea would make it easy as pie to figure out which one is which - but, the shortcut to launch them is the windows key, not alt, so....that might prove a little cumbersome....

johngalt said:

I am in build 7068, x86, and I have 10 items on my taskbar.

Using the Win key, if I press Win + 1, the first one (furthest to the left) opens. If I press Win + 2, the second from the left opens....etc...

Your idea would make it easy as pie to figure out which one is which - but, the shortcut to launch them is the windows key, not alt, so....that might prove a little cumbersome....

Press and HOLD WIN would be cool to show the shortcut overlays on the taskbar too since the start menu doesn't pop until keyup. Done as a key hold you could implement it as a global hook and just paint the numbers right on the icons if there were an API to provide window handles.

baarod said:

Press and HOLD WIN would be cool to show the shortcut overlays on the taskbar too since the start menu doesn't pop until keyup. Done as a key hold you could implement it as a global hook and just paint the numbers right on the icons if there were an API to provide window handles.

Problem with that is that Win + Tab is the shortcut to activate Flip3D - and you scroll while holding down the Win key....

Azural said:

I didn't realize that you could do that until now. It would be helpful to have the # appear on each image, but I doubt I would need it since I don't use that many different programs at once.

I thought you might not - this OS is way more well thought out than Vista was after they chopped and screwed out all the good stuff from the Longhorn Betas....

johngalt said:

Problem with that is that Win + Tab is the shortcut to activate Flip3D - and you scroll while holding down the Win key....

I've already started coding and have the hotkey stuff working -- since the code only react when the Winkey is pressed and then again when it's released and because it doesn't "eat" the event there's no interference with other hotkeys system or otherwise. Right now I've got a tool window that shows when Winkey is pressed and hides when it's released. I'm thinking it might be neat for that to end up with launcher buttons on or something...

fakeasdf said:

Yeah, that's exactly what I was talking about. I wanted onkeydown of the windows key (not alt, I was just mentioning alt because of what happens in Office 2007 when you click alt) to put the mask of the numbers. It's easy enough to know the first few, but then after those I have to count to figure out which one is which.

Well it's coded but not working. In order to set the icon overlay that you've requested you need the cooperation of the application whose window icon is being displayed on the taskbar. See SetOverlayIcon Method (ITaskbarList3) for more info. Here's the app for what it's worth, maybe it'll work for you or you've got some other idea for it...

Edit: well I just had another idea and it's totally cheeseball but it works. See if anyone can figure out what it did Run TaskbarIconOverlay.application to install TaskbarIconOverlay.zip