have a command prompt live on the desktop?

[ImaSyko]

Hi,
I'd like to be able to have a command prompt (instance of cmd.exe) that is always active, and is always underneath everything else. I know I can start cmd at startup, but I don't know how to force it to stay beneath other windows at all times. I don't want to be able to alt-tab to it, I don't want it to appear in the taskbar, I just want it to live on the desktop, exhibiting behavior similar to what windows 7 calls a gadget.

If there are shell alternatives (preferably free) which would allow this behavior, I'd be willing to consider them.

This isn't really a big deal, it's just something I thought would be kind of neat.
Thanks for any ideas.

 

[Thorsen]

I agree that would be kind of neat

Have looked just now and have not found an 3rd party program that will do this. but for people who work in the cmd on a daily basis a simple interface that sits on the desktop like a gadget would rock!

 

[Thorsen]

Think I found something:

Console is an open source, tabbed CMD alternative for Windows

looks pretty cool and im gonna give it a go

 

[ImaSyko]

Hey guys, thanks for the suggestions. I'm currently giving "Console" a tryout. So far, I like most of the features, especially the ability to hide it from the taskbar and pinning it to the desktop. Other ideas are welcome, but as far as I'm concerned I think it's solved.

 

[MilesAhead]

There are a lot of cool tabbed and Gui command prompts in Linux. The ones I've tried in Windows seem to have funky side effects. (I haven't tried the particular one suggested in this thread. Could work fine but I've kind of given up trying these type of utilities.) In any event, another approach is just to change the attribute of the CMD prompt window. I had a hotkey called TopmostToggle that toggled the Stay On Top attribute of a window by Control Right Clicking on it. I added Shift Right Click to also toggle AltTab visibility.

It's free for you to use at your own risk. You can download from my page here:
Hotkeys

Just search the page for Topmost to get the download link.

I tested it on Windows7 32 bit command prompt window. Seems to work fine. If you Shift Right Click on another window and it goes really strange Shift Right Click again should put it back as found.

edit: if anyone out there is using TopmostToggle 1.4.0.0 using Check For Updates command should download it auto-magically.

edit2: instead of manually setting the attributes you may want to use a batch file in start up with a program like NirCmd to set the window attributes. TopmostToggle you can use to test before automating a solution.

 

[Thorsen]

Good post Miles Ahead. When I was looking for software like console, I was hoping maybe you had written or could write up a program real fast

I think one of the things he wanted was for it to be going on startup so the batch script would be needed. I had seen NirCmd somewhere in my search, but it wasn't actually a CMD console, but more of an automator? or something. I will look into that program as well.

 

[Thorsen]

Well, I was playing around with Console and leave it to me to break things.

somehow if it is open and you click "Open main console" from the taskbar it will put itself into an infinite repeat loop lol

Edit:
_____________________________
Found the problem. I had set a shell command to C:\Program Files (x86)\Console2\Console.exe
and it was opening itself over and over again.
___________________________

so i had 100 instances of Console before my CPU was at full load and each time I closed one it spawned a new one as soon as CPU had resources

So I forced shutdown etc. and when i restarted, I opened Console again and its settings were the same and it put me into the infinite loop again... forced shutdown again to stop (Ctrl-C did not break) not sure of any other way to break.

Will try reextracting from the Zip. to see if it fixes, but I would not run this at startup in this condition

you would startup in an infinite loop if you broke it like i did.

 

[Thorsen]

Ok so reextract didnt fix, but I found the fix. It happened when I saved the settings in options.

So the save file is in C:/Users/<Name>/AppData/Roaming/Console2

Delete the file console2.xml and it will take out saved data and reset the defaults

 

[Thorsen]

Found the problem. I had set a shell command to C:\Program Files (x86)\Console2\Console.exe
and it was opening itself over and over again.

 

[MilesAhead]

Good post Miles Ahead. When I was looking for software like console, I was hoping maybe you had written or could write up a program real fast

I think one of the things he wanted was for it to be going on startup so the batch script would be needed. I had seen NirCmd somewhere in my search, but it wasn't actually a CMD console, but more of an automator? or something. I will look into that program as well.

NirCmd is a command line tool that can do lots of things. It has a win command that can change a window's size, position, attributes, hide it etc.. See NirCmd win command style in the NirCmd.chm file. You can change the same attributes I do with TopmostToggle only from a batch. One way to set a delay in batch is to use the ping command. This gives the window a chance to open.

ping -n 3 127.0.0.1 > nul

I haven't gotten into powershell so there's probably newer ways to set a delay but the ping trick should work on just about any NT based Windows that has a TCP/IP stack installed. The number after the 'n' is approx. number of seconds delay you want. Not super ms accurate. But good enough for most kludges.

 

[MilesAhead]

I uploaded TopmostToggle 1.5.0.0 again. Now the Zip file includes the source. You can see what attributes I change if you want to do the same via NirCmd or another utility.

 

[MilesAhead]

Hi,
I'd like to be able to have a command prompt (instance of cmd.exe) that is always active, and is always underneath everything else. I know I can start cmd at startup, but I don't know how to force it to stay beneath other windows at all times. I don't want to be able to alt-tab to it, I don't want it to appear in the taskbar, I just want it to live on the desktop, exhibiting behavior similar to what windows 7 calls a gadget.

If there are shell alternatives (preferably free) which would allow this behavior, I'd be willing to consider them.

This isn't really a big deal, it's just something I thought would be kind of neat.
Thanks for any ideas.

I've been reading up on some of the window extended styles. Seems like the
WS_EX_NOACTIVATE

style would keep it on the bottom. But then you wouldn't be able to type into it. I'm not sure if just calling SetForegroundWindow() would allow it to get keyboard input.
I'm curious why you want it on the bottom though?

 

[Thorsen]

I know from doing DB creation and installs, the DB is written in a manner that you need to specify parameters in the command line to run install. The install can take 10 minutes for updates or for Oracle DB creations 5+ hours. This is sitting in a cmd window just running so if it was possible to lock it to the desktop, keep it from focus on alt-tab or any other method than actually typing into it, you just wait till the command finishes. instead of worrying about accidentally closing or moving or loosing track of your 5hour install...

 

[Thorsen]

But i never really thought of how useful a specific locked window just for that would be.

You also use cmd quite a lot with networking. I cant tell you how many times i have opened up a cmd just to tnsping something and to get the ip addy for specific server environments. Having a cmd window sitting there ready to run a command saves a bunch of steps if you are setting up multiple servers and are constantly verifying connections or server ips

 

[MilesAhead]

So how do you type into the cmd prompt in the first place if it never has the focus? Or are you just talking using for batch?

 

[Thorsen]

Oh sorry I meant that it doesn't get focus from anything else until you type in the screen.

 

[MilesAhead]

Oh sorry I meant that it doesn't get focus from anything else until you type in the screen.

I see. I didn't mess around with it enough to judge the behavior. I'll have to experiment as it may be a generally useful attribute to employ.

Edit: when I change the extended style of an existing window to include WS_EX_NOACTIVATE it won't accept keystrokes after that. At least it doesn't seem generally useful to me. Seems like something more for a window being on top without grabbing keyboard focus or something. Anyway if I have a long command line job I can just minimize the window.