Custom Toolbars?

[Phraun]

I've been lurking around here the past two days while I've been getting the release candidate up and running on my machine, and I had a question that doesn't seem to have been answered: Essentially I want a My Computer toolbar on the top of the screen that auto-hides, but I haven't been able to figure out how to get it to work. Does anybody have any ideas?

I've used this in both XP and Vista, but I'm at a loss as to how to do it in Windows 7. Also, I'm running a multi-monitor setup with Display Fusion, if that makes any difference.

 

[swarfega]

right click taskbar and select properties
youl see taskbar location on screen, here you can choose top, click ok.

Auto hide is also on that screen.

 

[Phraun]

No it's not the taskbar I want to move, I want a whole separate toolbar displaying the contents of My Computer on the top of my screen. I want the taskbar to stay where it is. Thanks anyway though.

 

[nate42nd]

Are you thinking about a third-party app like rocket dock?

RocketDock - Free software downloads and reviews - CNET Download.com

I don't understand what you mean.....sorry. This is a cool app though.

 

[Phraun]

Nah that's not what I meant, it's not a third party app. At least, you didn't need one in Vista and XP to do it. How it used to work is you could drag a folder to the top or sides of the desktop and it would create a toolbar bound to the location you dragged to. In this case, it'd be My Computer. Then you could auto-hide it so that only when you dragged your mouse over the section of screen where it was located would it pop out. Generally speaking it was about the same size as the old taskbar, but it had that generic taupe color a la windows 98/95.
I suppose it might just be I was the only who ever used the functionality?

 

[iPhillip]

I've never heard of it.

Screenshot of an example in vista or something?

 

[Orbital Shark]

Hi Phraun, welcome to the forums.

I know exactly what you mean, although i never experienced it in Vista i have seen & used it in XP. To all who are not sure it was basically the ability to drag a folder to the top/bottom/sides & it would create a new taskbar as such.

As far as i know it's not natively available in Se7en (Not tested it in Vista) but there may be some 3rd party software that can do what you require. You could try Stardock as they have some very good skin/theme software available.


Hope this helps





Jeff

 

[noyb]

In XP or Vista .. You could drag a folder to the edge of your screen and make a new task bar.
I tried to do this in 7 and it looks like another good tool has been removed.

 

[Phraun]

Ah I see, well that's a huge bummer if it's been removed. :huh:
I'll go dig around and see if I can't find an alternative; if anyone has any ideas, I'm all ears.

Thanks for all the responses guys. Also, thanks for the welcome Orbital

 

[Night Hawk]

You may want to right click again on the toolbar and scroll to the bottom of the right click menu for the new toolbar option. I think a few may have been thinking about the old quick launch section you can resize somewhat on XP and Vista.

 

[Phraun]

Night Hawk,
Right, I already know how to make the new toolbar, the issue here is relocating it to the top of the screen. Orbital probably described it a bit better than I did, but that's what I'm trying to do.

 

[Night Hawk]

Unfortunately that creates a new dropdown list rather then a new toolbar. That option also requires a new folder for storing shortcuts in.

Without a 3rd party item the taskbar would need to be at the top if not using something like Rocketdock to begin with. The primary advantage of that option is for increasing capacity on the existing bar once shortcuts are combined due to lack of space once the bar is past the full mark.

 

[Phraun]

Yep, that would be the problem... I'm gonna go play around with RocketDock since it appears that it's well-liked by everyone that's used it; maybe I can make something work with that.

 

[Night Hawk]

It's not a bad one by any means and it will stretch across the top, bottom, or sides depending where you have it set. I wouldn't mind seeing two of those one on each side here if that was possible over the new toolbar option.

With Rocketdock you can also set the transparency or other theme for that to match things up the best. That also sees the autohide when checked off.

 

[Phraun]

Well, I wound up shifting everything from My Computer into an auto-hide rocket dock setup with the Display Special Actions thing checked in all of the icons; it's not the ideal fix, but works for the time being. In the mean time I'm going to see about writing something myself that does the job a bit better.

At any rate, thanks to all those that gave input/suggestions.

 

[Night Hawk]

If you should happen to find another toolbar that will run on the opposite side of the screen from the Rocketdock let us know! Here I cleaned up some more shortcuts simply using the new toolbar option.