Shortcuts on taskbar, next to program icons. How?

Hello,

Fresh Windows 10 user here since a few days. Went from Vista to XP to 7 to 10.

I never liked the "pinned to taskbar" way of dealing with icons. In Vista and XP I remember having a small selection of shortcuts on my taskbar, between the start button and the row with icons of active programs. I somehow managed to get a similar setup going for windows 7. I have no idea how I could achieve this in Windows 10.

I have it setup at the moment where I don't pin anything to my taskbar, and have it set to not stack icons, so this way only active programs are shown on the taskbar. Each active instance of Firefox also is shown as a separate icon, and this is how it should be in my opinion.

However I would like to add a couple of shortcuts to the taskbar. Not "pinned" icons. I basically want a shortcut to firefox in case I quickly need a new instance of it opened. Is there a way to do this? If I pin Firefox to the taskbar it again gets all confusing for me...

Thanks!!

Thanks.

Welcome to TenForums!

It sounds to me like there may be some confusion, or wrong terminology here. You note that you want to place a shortcut on the taskbar, but not a pinned icon. However, when you pin something to the taskbar, that IS A SHORTCUT. In other words, what you want to accomplish is done by pinning to the taskbar.

Does that make sense or am I misunderstanding your concern?

hsehestedt said:

Welcome to TenForums!

It sounds to me like there may be some confusion, or wrong terminology here. You note that you want to place a shortcut on the taskbar, but not a pinned icon. However, when you pin something to the taskbar, that IS A SHORTCUT. In other words, what you want to accomplish is done by pinning to the taskbar.

Does that make sense or am I misunderstanding your concern?

Thank you for your quick reply. You are right, however pinning Firefox to the taskbar doesn't allow me to quickly open a new instance of the program, without having to right click the icon and select "open new window". In previous versions I had a separate shortcut for this that would activate a new window of the browser with a single mouse click.
Hope this explains my question.
Thanks!

Okay, I understand what you are saying. I'm trying to see if I can determine a way to do this from the taskbar. For the moment, it may take that one extra click, or you could simply create a shortcut on your desktop rather than in the taskbar.

Here you can see part of a screenshot of how I had it working in Windows 7. Between the start button and the program bar were some shortcuts. Desktop, mail and firefox were visible, with an expandable list next to it.

this would be my preferred way of doing things, if possible...

DOH! Quick Launch. I forgot all about that (I don't use it). I just can't keep track of it all. My brain is melting .

ikonhero said:

I have it setup at the moment where I don't pin anything to my taskbar, and have it set to not stack icons, so this way only active programs are shown on the taskbar. Each active instance of Firefox also is shown as a separate icon, and this is how it should be in my opinion.

I love a person with bold opinions that thinks outside of the box. I do. I'm one of them. That said --

-- I wouldn't even remotely encourage anyone to go down this road this way. You're fighting the system instead of working with it.

Here's what I'd recommend.

1. Abandon the idea of having program shortcuts on the desktop.

2. All programs go in the Start Menu or Taskbar. Never both.

3. Taskbar is for programs you'll use often. File Explorer, browsers, email, contacts, to-dos, chat, calculator, maps, photos, music.

4. Start Menu is for apps you don't use so often but don't want to forget they exist. For me that's Windows Store, Windows Security, Task Manager, LibreOffice apps, etcetera. In this way --

5. -- I almost never use the app menu in the start menu. The alphabetical one on the left. (I never use the app draw on my Android phone either.) I hate hunting for things. It's easier to organize and be done with it. And as I get older it begins to be difficult to remember obscure programs I like to use.

6. Use Tabs in Firefox to reduce taskbar clutter. Pin favorite tabs to reduce clutter in Firefox tab bar.

------------------------- EXTRA CREDIT ----------------------------

7. I move the Recycle Bin off the desktop and into the Start Menu. (Right click something if you want it gone, or use the big red X in file explorer.)

8. I use AUTOHIDEDESKTOPICONS to create the illusion my desktop is spotless. (Everything is still there but the desktop must be clicked once to reveal the crapola.

9. This one is kinda silly but it's what coming in future editions of Windows: centered taskbar. Available now via the slightly annoying to setup Taskbar X program.

10. When you do all that you get this --



Clean as a whistle.

The Pool Man said:

I love a person with bold opinions that thinks outside of the box. I do. I'm one of them. That said --

-- I wouldn't even remotely encourage anyone to go down this road this way. You're fighting the system instead of working with it.

Here's what I'd recommend.

1. Abandon the idea of having program shortcuts on the desktop.

2. All programs go in the Start Menu or Taskbar. Never both.

3. Taskbar is for programs you'll use often. File Explorer, browsers, email, contacts, to-dos, chat, calculator, maps, photos, music.

4. Start Menu is for apps you don't use so often but don't want to forget they exist. For me that's Windows Store, Windows Security, Task Manager, LibreOffice apps, etcetera. In this way --

5. -- I almost never use the app menu in the start menu. The alphabetical one on the left. (I never use the app draw on my Android phone either.) I hate hunting for things. It's easier to organize and be done with it. And as I get older it begins to be difficult to remember obscure programs I like to use.

6. Use Tabs in Firefox to reduce taskbar clutter. Pin favorite tabs to reduce clutter in Firefox tab bar.

------------------------- EXTRA CREDIT ----------------------------

7. I move the Recycle Bin off the desktop and into the Start Menu. (Right click something if you want it gone, or use the big red X in file explorer.)

8. I use AUTOHIDEDESKTOPICONS to create the illusion my desktop is spotless. (Everything is still there but the desktop must be clicked once to reveal the crapola.

9. This one is kinda silly but it's what coming in future editions of Windows: centered taskbar. Available now via the slightly annoying to setup Taskbar X program.

10. When you do all that you get this --



Clean as a whistle.

1. I run multiple instances of Firefox Portable Edition by using Sandboxie in such a particular way that each instance uses its own unique browser configuration. As a result from this, pinning Firefox to Taskbar isn't a workable solution for me.

2. Some of my shortcuts point to a simple .vbs file that I wrote. When launched, it runs windowless and then it exits immediately, as its only purpose is to launch a .bat file, also windowless. So, pinning it to Taskbar would clutter up the specific part of my Taskbar that shows apps running that are not pinned.

3. Some of my special shortcuts can't even be pinned to Taskbar anyway in the first place. By design, the Taskbar just refuses to accept them.

4. The only thing I have pinned to Taskbar is Explorer. That's just because looking for the horizontal bars below the icons to distinguish which Pinned Apps are running vs not running gives me heebie-jeebies.

5. Shortcuts on a Toolbar are spaced closer together than pinned apps are, which means that a Toolbar can take up less space in comparison to having a whole plethora of Pinned Apps.

6. Upon locating a shortcut on a Toolbar, the reduced spacing between icons also helps to avoid heebie-jeebies.