Hello friends
I have a problem with telling apart icons on my taskbar between active and just pinned because my screen is damaged and has a permanent blue line along the bottom of the screen.
I know there is a way to customise the line and i would like to make it more visible so the active icons stand out more, or even a square like it was in win7
Would you consider moving your taskbar to a different screen boundary?
(Just drag and drop it if it's not locked).
Thanks for the suggestion, i tried it and find it an inconvenience for example when I go to close a window I now hit the show desktop button because it is now what is in that corner of the screen. i can't unlearn the movements i've been using for many years still appreciate the suggestion though
Time to ask someone to buy you a new monitor for Christmas perhaps...- unless it's a laptop.. it's possible to get displays sometimes, but then you have to decide whether it's worth it..
Have you tried a double height taskbar? Just drag the top up a bit..
That feature at the right end of the Taskbar is called the Peek, hovering over it momentarily shows the desktop and clicking it minimizes all open programs. If minimized it can be clicked again to restore but if clicking something else on the screen all programs will stay minimized. It can be defeated by right-clicking the Taskbar, choose Taskbar settings and look at "Use Peek to preview the desktop.................................................".
I have custom settings for my fonts, font sizes, etc... such as this picture:
(Notice the title of the window is in a bold font).
So I tried messing with a certain setting, which reset all my custom fonts, etc, ......yet I have a backup in that registry file of certain settings.
So! The first thing I want you to do is to create a backup of a certain Registry folder:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics
[Open Registry Editor > go to that location (copy/paste that link) > On the left side, right click on WindowsMetrics > Export > Make a name for it and save it on the Desktop.]
Second:
Right click Desktop > Display settings. On the right side, scroll down a bit and press Advanced scaling settings > Scroll down a bit and look for the box that has 100% - 500% information thingy. Type this in the box: 120, and press Apply. Sign off, then sign back in. Does the Taskbar look a bit better? Be aware that other apps also may have a slightly larger font. Try it out for a day of full computer use. See if you like this tiny adjustment. If you don't like this idea, we can try something new.
***** May I ask a question though, just for clarification: I'm assuming you manually added that blue line in the two of the three pictures above, because taking a screen shot of your Desktop should NOT show that blue line, since the damage is a physical damage of the monitor, correct? I'm assuming you manually added that blue line, since the first picture doesn't show that blue line.
You can turn on or off transparency and the program (icon) will show somewhat better: Turn On or Off Clear Acrylic Taskbar Transparency in Windows 10
I appreciate the suggestion and unfortunately yes it's a laptop and no it's really not worth buying a new display for it. the line is there almost always but since its at the very bottom of the screen it's not all bad. double taskbar once again solves the problem but not ideal as it robs me of the working screen area same reason why i hide the bookmarks toolbar in firefox
Sorry to hear about your custom settings getting messed up good that you made a backup - something i have yet to make a habit of. i gave it a try at 120 dpi but found that a lot of the programs i use barely fit on the screen. my laptop is only 1366 by 768 so really a no go for me but thank you for the suggestion and the effort and your time
I appreciate the suggestion and this is what gave me an idea for a solution that i want to share:
i ended up writing a program to add backgrounds to icons that are open right now its just a proof of concept and very glitchy and ineficient
Hello JRM1636,
The attached pic you have of the program you wrote to highlight the active icons better in the WIN10 task bar looks awesome. It appears to be what many people are looking for, I know I am. Can you send a link or explain what you did? Did you work the bugs out of it?
Thanks
Last edited by DaveSlinger; 27 Mar 2020 at 09:29. Reason: Add name
Hi Dave,
the program I made is written in vb.net, made in microsoft visual basic 2010 express
this is what it does:
1. it takes a screenshot of the very bottom line of the screen (1366x1 pixels)
2. it looks at individual pixels corresponding to icons positions (59th, 109th, 159th pixel etc)
3. it gets the color of that pixel and compares it with the widnows' blue underline color (i think its like 3 shades depending on if you hover mouse over the icon)
4. if it sees that the pixel is blue that means that icon is active (and not just a pinned shortcut)
5. it displays a white box behind that icon. The programs window is the size of the taskbar, behind the taskbar and transparent except the boxes
6. it then loops back to point 1 and repeats this process (happens 2 times per second)
in other words:
look at screen, see which icons have lines and for the ones that do - display a box behind them
problems with this:
- terribly ineficient
- 1-3% constant cpu load
- it is a pain to set up the pixel and box spacing for different screen resolutions
- if you show desktop, its window gets minimized too
- throws exceptions left and right if you lock your computer (it can't take screenshot then, i just made it not display the errors)
- sometimes the window will be on top and you won't be able to click anything on the taskbar (i just press the win key to bring taskbar to front)
- sometimes if you hover your mouse repeatetly over active icons the highlight thing will disappear for a second
- its barely visible behind the stock taskbar (I use openshell and it makes it more transparent)
i have been using this since then (don't have the knowledge to make it better) and other than that it's been helpful to myself
if I had better knowledge and skills I would make this either watch processes or hook directly into taskbar's events and update only when necessary. maybe somebody else can pick up from this and make their own better version?
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