An Admission
I know this is crazy. I know it’s bizarre. I know I may even face ridicule. But THIS is something I feel I must confess. I’d hate to leave this earth without anyone knowing the truth about me so I’m saying it now to let it forever be known.
My taskbar is on the left side of my Windows desktop and I use the “AutoHide” feature. There I said it. I feel like such a freak. I’ve never seen anyone else using a similar setup. Granted I haven’t seen everybody’s desktop, but I don’t have to. I’ve seen the pictures and the screen captures, I don’t need to show you all the lurid details (details 1, 2 and 3) again and again. All you conformists with your always-on bottom-screen taskbars, and your widgets, and your other fiddle-de-dee just gobbling up precious screen real estate like there’s no tomorrow. Such conspicuous consumption saddens me. o<:-( As proof to the rarity of my circumstances I used none other than Google.com to perform a comprehensive search of the internet for the most relevant term (“windows taskbar” “left side” autohide “leprechaun monkey”*) and found that there were absolutely NO relevant results! I stand alone on the “windows taskbar” “left side” autohide front!
Has my admission provoked you? Do you think you might be a “left-sider-auto-hider”? Do you know somebody who is? If you did, would you admit it? Now is your chance people. Speak up! Don’t be forever relegated to the darkest depths of the internet with the rest of the leprechaun monkeys. Stand up and be heard! Speak your minds you magnificent bastards!
(*) The term “leprechaun monkey” was used to enhance search results. Why “leprechaun monkey” you ask. Because the search for (“windows taskbar” “left side” autohide leprechaun) actually produced a result and that was not to my liking. 😉
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@Zequart, Thanks for the tip. I’m looking to buy a new laptop and wasn’t sure what OS to use, maybe this will give me enough of a reason to try Linux.
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make the taskbar open only when you point at the corner?
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KDE (in Linux) has this feature.
“do you know how we can make the taskbar open only when you point at the corner?”
>>I was googling for exact same thing, couldn’t find though. The purpose I was looking for it was that whenever I take my pointer to ‘File’ menu (yep, I use it on left too), most of the times it pops up the taskbar. Annoying, I know. But here’s something I found to overcome it, its a simple software that *delays* popping up the taskbar. Plus it solved that problem of taksbar sometimes not popping up when working on ‘always-on-top’ applications.
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm
Line 190, right side.
(found it here : http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/35768-45-cause-taskbar-delay-pops)
Hello Ilan K, welcome to the AHC (Auto-Hiding Club). 😉 I WISH there was a way to make the Auto-Hide Start Menu activate with a single corner pixel, but I don’t know of one.
Hi!
I’m a AH lefty too! Been doing it for over 7 years.
I have a co worker who uses the taskbar on the Right, but without AH.
Long live the non-conformists!
Ilan from Israel.
p.s. do you know how we can make the taskbar open only when you point at the corner? That’s the one thing that would make it really perfect!
Hey, I have spent some time here as a result of looking for a flip book. I have so enjoyed the witty comments comic stuff (linked). Keep it up, and thanks for the fla. I will start to experiment soon. And reading about strange task bar behaviour. Your right, it is strange..!
Roy Thomas UK
I’ve experimented with configurations and find it most beneficial to break off the quick launch menu and put that on the side, which I used to autohide, but that would cause me problems when I would play Command & Conquer: Generals in that when I touched the quick launch hit area it would cause the menu to pop-over my game and flicker there without cease, never to auto-hide again until I would restart the game. It would also kill the audio.
So, yes, I agree that MS didn’t think it all out when they let us move the menus around.
or find a better music player, although i don’t have any suggestions. i personally use winamp, although i don’t think you can dock that with the task bar…
I don’t see anything special about the taskbar being on the left side. I’ve been doing so for years. Those whose computers i setup ask me for tips and have recommended it many times. Many still use it. The Media player bar is the one thing that just drives me crazy of how much space it requires having the taskbar on the left. I hate to remove it because i like to access the controls without opening it. You would thing that microsoft would know any better…
I was searching for a possible solution to this problem for vista and ended up here. i guess i should keep on looking.
*dribble*
haha! that is making me quesy with lust! is it wrong that i lust after such geeky things?!
Stupid Media Player! That just proves Microsoft didn’t really expect anyone to auto-hide their taskbar on the left side.
If MS would just let me reduce the target area (hit area) to a single pixel in the top left corner rather than the entire left column, my “left-side auto-hide” dreams would come true.
the one thing that does drive me nuts is (because i use windows media player on my work desktop) when it docks with the task bar it doesn’t look pretty to the side!
my taskbar is about quater of one of my screens 😉
John, glad you converted, now I’m not the only one. 😉
Since you’re using the Auto-Hide feature, don’t be afraid to make the taskbar real big so you can read all your tabs. My taskbar is about one fifth the width of my screen when open.
Nope, never used Vis Studio.
oh how that made me chuckle!! especialy the last paragraph!
althought you have provoked a thought in my mind. and no it isn’t of the disturbing kind! i think i shall try your way of life (or at least desktop life) and put my task bar on the side, althought trying to cipher between which programe i am using and what i want to switch too can be confusing. i guess i’ll get used to it!
do you use vis studio 2005 by any chance?