Anyone seen a tray app that pops up a list of program shortcuts?

There used to be one of these in the days of W98 or maybe W95. It was called TrayList or DeskList or something like that. I'm sure one of you uh, ahem, more senior gentlemen, will remember it.

It had a small unobtrusive icon that sat, if I recall correctly, in the systray, the notification area.

When clicked, up popped an alphabetized text list of all the app shortcuts you'd previously added to it. If you had heaps of 'em , there'd be several columns of the things.

Your list might read, say, 'Acronis, Beyond Compare, CamTech.....SevenForums, Word,etc etc. To open a program, you single-clicked a name.

For me, there's never been a quicker, easier way to start apps and software than a quick scan of an alphabetic list to find your target. Sure, clicking a shortcut's icon is pretty quick, and you can do this fast with the handful you're most familiar with. But for the others you use less frequently, it's sometimes a challenge to recall which icon is which.

Anyway, the developer lost interest in his little program and it never worked properly past W98. Or was that XP?...

So, my question is: Does anyone know of something like this? Shucks, it's times like this I wish I knew more about programming. I can't believe this little piece of software could be that hard to write. For someone with a full deck of cards, that is

Something like this?

Create Customizable System Tray Shortcuts For Any Windows App With Tray Tools

BrightBlessings, thanks for the link. I'll try it but I'm not sure it's what I'm looking for.

DeskList (or whatever it was called) brought up a plain square screen with one or more columns (depending on how many names you'd loaded) of app names. The possible number of items was pretty high, 100 at least. This guy's app apparently allows 25. Anyway, I'll check it out and report back.

Gawd! How hard would it be to write something like this, anyhow? Anyone know how I'd go about setting it up?

Probably not what you are not looking for, but a work-around I use.

I created a folder with the name U
In this folder I put shortcuts for all the utility programs I use.
Then I right click on the Taskbar, choose New Toolbar.
When the explorer window opens up, I locate the folder U and click on it.
A "U" will appear next to the System Tray on the far right of the Taskbar.
The "U" will have two >> symbols next to it. Clicking on this symbol will open a listing of all my utility program (shortcuts).

Naming the folder with only one letter does not take up anymore space on the Taskbar, then if there was another icon in the system tray.

Actually I have several of these one-letter folders added to my Taskbar (u for utilities; a for accounting (where I have several spreadsheet shortcuts), etc.

This probably is not what you were looking for, but may work for you (no limit on number of shortcuts that can be put in each folder).

teckneeculler said:

... I'm sure one of you uh, ahem, more senior gentlemen, will remember it. ...

I 'was there', tho do not recall this one. Curious as to how, as described, such an app is any better than the 'Start Menu'.

Wow, thanks for your responses, people :)

akjudge: Sounds interesting, I'll try it.

Mourning Star: I should say first that I spend all day (and a lot of the night, sometimes) on my computer, so I'm a great fan of anything that speeds up my work.

(BTW, anyone else here use the 'Everything' free search app? That's a program I can NOT do without. Yesterday I conducted a major search of my overloaded PC to locate every Windows Update I'd recently downloaded (300-400) so I could chart their locations. I just had to type in say, 3084135 (no need for KB prefix) and the exact microsecond I typed the last character, bingo! Every copy of the file listed and charted. Same with any doc or pic, especially ones you can only remember part of the name. But I digress)

The Start Menu is quite a bit slower and takes more thought. For a start (no pun), the menu is in two parts (depending on how you've configured it, of course), then you have to scroll it. Is the app 'out in the open' or is it in its folder? In which case you have to open the folder and look for the exe. No, this method is way slower. I depend more on shortcut icons. I've tweaked my W7 Taskbar to hold shortcut icons (like XP used to do) plus it's parked on the right of my screen instead of the bottom, which helps to minimize the wide stretch of 16:9 screens. My monitor is 16:10 but it's still too wide for me. Parking the Taskbar there makes the screen more square, more like the old CRT 4:3 format. The Taskbar's also stretched to around 50mm wide, so it's wide enough to hold 100 shortcut icons. But I know from my experience with that-app-I-don't -remember-the-name-of that it was much faster to click its icon, eyeball the alpha list then click the target name.

whs: Thanks, haven't checked the link yet. Will do and come back.

Callender: Thanks, sound interesting. I'll take a look shortly.

Cheers, all. Very helpful

teckneeculler said:

... Mourning Star: ... the [Start] menu is in two parts (depending on how you've configured it, of course), ...

Exactly!

Yeah, I always use Classic Shell to get the Start Menu the way I want it.

Hey, keep tabs, Mourning Star. I've found my missing app in a 16-year old archive. Turns out it works like a charm in W7. I'll attach it and anybody who wants can try it.

Gotta go, customer emergency...