Firoz Ansari's Weblog

PowerMenu – Minimizing application to system tray

I would like to share one of my favorite utility tools with you. PowerMenu is the collection of extensions to the window menu which really save me when I am working with lot of application at a time. Following are the listing of those extensions:

 

Priority > Changes the priority of the window's parent process
Transparency > Changes the transparency level of the window (Windows 2K/XP only)
Always On Top > Makes the window sit on top of other windows even if it doesn't have focus.
Minimize To Tray > Remove the window from the task-list and places the window's on the system tray.
 

Most of the time my task bar is filled with some of the applications every time. These applications like CVS, Explorer, TextPad, Browser (IE2) and some word documents etc. Even though I need CVS once in a hour, but I prefer to keep open every time. It’s my habit!!! :) Same goes to utilities TextPad (with very small size and always on top mode) and IE2 as well. This results with lot of application taking my “precious” place in task bar. So PowerMenu utility comes handy to move some of the “required” application to system bar to make task bar more cleaner.

 

You can download it from following URL:

http://www.veridicus.com/tummy/programming/powermenu/

 

I have created a small batch file and placed it into the Startup folder so that I don’t need to run every time. Batch file contains following command:

 

PowerMenu.BAT

"E:\Utilities\PowerMenu\PowerMenu.exe" -hideself on

 

Thanks Thong Nguyen for this handy utility!!

 

 

Posted: Jun 13 2005, 11:47 AM by firoz.ansari | with 3 comment(s)

Comments

Chris Martin said:

Thanks for that! Very nice.
# June 13, 2005 12:04 PM

Jojo said:

I run that batch file but see a dos command window popping up.

I have added a vbscript file to call that batch file, then put a shortcut to the vbs file at the startup menu, so it starts up in the background when windows starts.

The vbs file can be created using a notepad to copy the following and save the file as PowerMenu.vbs

Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

cmd = "PowerMenu.bat"

Return = WshShell.Run(cmd, 0, True)

set WshShell = Nothing

# November 16, 2008 6:33 AM

CHS said:

You don't need a batch to add switches, just create a shortcut for the program then right click the shortcut and go to properties then edit the target to display PowerMenu.exe" -hideself on and drag that shortcut to the startup folder.

# May 13, 2009 10:34 AM
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