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Drag and drop your Windows taskbar buttons!

freewebs.com — Free program that lets you drag and drop your Windows taskbar buttons to re-order them! No extra hotkey or lame extra steps, just drag 'n drop... sooo useful.

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idris 2 years 148 days ago, made popular 2 years 148 days ago

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shout, on 10/12/2007, -6/+73I always why you couldn't do this natively. It seems like a no-brainer.
- mark1372, on 10/12/2007, -89/+23"No *****!"
  - Apple
- seanmc303, on 10/12/2007, -7/+7Word. Another one I have been using for about a year now is taskbar .
  http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA013430/program/taskbarpp/main.html
  
  The site is in Japanese, but you don't have to know how to read Japanese to be able to use taskbar .
  It is lightweight, easy to use, and does exactly what I want it to do.
- EndofEternity, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@seanmc303
  
  The version by the Japanese dude is much more buggy and it doesn't play well with any theme other than Luna Blue (and maybe classic, didn't try it).
- Sirfrummel, on 10/12/2007, -4/+25You always why?
  
  Yes, me too.
- CaspianXI, on 10/12/2007, -20/+11"I always why you couldn't do this natively. It seems like a no-brainer."
  
  This feature has been built-into Gnome and KDE (Linux desktop enviornments) for years. I wonder why Windows doesn't catch onto these things.
- SamKellett, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14That has to be the nicest designed freewebs site i've ever seen...
- richardiscool, on 10/12/2007, -9/+2Has it? It's not working in GNOME here.
- idris, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5This is a nice Freewebs site. And its not even a custom design? Kudos Freewebs!
- turgiddahlia, on 10/12/2007, -13/+2Yeah, Windows might not have Taskbar reordering built in, but you know what it DOES have built in? It has built in "not-being-a-piece-of-*****-Linux-distro".
- pauldonnelly, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10@turdiddahlia
  Strangely enough, so do most Linux distros.
- brownspank, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"I wonder why Windows doesn't catch onto these things."
  
  You mean, pull a Sony? :)
haroonm, on 10/12/2007, -15/+4frikkin sweet man..
DosAngst, on 10/12/2007, -12/+3This thing is very usefull! See for yourself!
mixd, on 10/12/2007, -4/+20dude I think would pay this guy 10 cents every time i use this thing
- KenG6, on 10/12/2007, -3/+28Dammit, stop giving him ideas!
- badave, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8And at the end of the day, he'd have a nickel.
- jmerox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6haha, don't worry.. I'd never charge for it. I wrote this thing like 4yrs ago, just never released it because I didn't realize other people would find it useful.
smokester, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17Can you remember things before tabbed browsing? Awful

I can imagine feeling the same about this after a few weeks using it
- comeonpriitk, on 10/12/2007, -14/+3I'm guessing you haven't used fluxbox or win98?
  Fluxbox lets you tab any window.
  win98 shows all programs on one row of the task bar, none of this grouping or scrolling annoyance.
- fartingbob, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Yea, you can diable the grouping in XP very easily you know...
- comeonpriitk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Disabling grouping doesn't fix the scrolling...
- HyperX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yeah but on win 98 after you got too many ones it wouldnt show them all which was more annoying then scrolling
unodsp, on 10/12/2007, -4/+28movable buttons = crazy delicious
jenseng, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Pretty slick... my only complaint is that is that if the dragging is inconsistent w/ most other drag and drop implementations. Ideally, if you drag a button over another one, it should insert it on the left if you are on the left side of the button and on the right if you are on the right side.
ddrirc, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13Will Windows Vista have this by default? I've wanted to do this for sooo long.
- moiety, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4> Will Windows Vista have this by default? I've wanted to do this for sooo long.
  
  No, it wont. And, if you think about it, it's probably best that it doesn't. It's was hard enough teaching my parents to understand the whole taskbar concept, minimizing and clicking to bring other windows forward. Now that they've got the hang of it, they remember the order windows are opened and just go by that. Now tack on the possibility that they could now move stuff about down there, I think they'd lose any sense of what they're doing. I imagine that could be the case for a lot of Windows users.
  
  That having been said, it'd be wonderful to have an option to enable such functionality. Give the power users what they want, certainly.
- CedanticPunt, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2"Now tack on the possibility that they could now move stuff about down there, I think they'd lose any sense of what they're doing. I imagine that could be the case for a lot of Windows users."
  
  And people complain if a Mac mouse has 1 button. Granted your parents may find it confusing, but it could be an option. This is a very annoying thing about using Windows - it's interface manages to be dumbed down when it should be flexible and over complicated when it should be simple. The Windows design seems to be: create a poorly designed, unintuitive interface, then when no-one can understand it: add a wizard that's so dumbed-down it's of no use at all...
- moiety, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3> Granted your parents may find it confusing, but it could be an option.
  
  I am fairly certain that's what I just said. But I agree, the Windows UI is extremely stupid about some things. Microsoft really needs to get some decent designers on the payroll.
AlmostAnon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+39My only complaint is that it adds a tray icon (and a splash screen). This would be a perfect application if it wasn't for those two things. What's the point of making a seamless application and then stuff it full of useless crap that makes it less seamless.
- tonyhartfield, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12yeah i'm not going to use this because the last thing i want is yet another tray icon let alone a splash screen
- deacont23, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11Only if it let you move those tray icons also
- pbaehr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14Splash screens are annoying but I don't mind this one so much since it's only up for a few seconds at boot. Plus, if you're using Windows XP, just set it to "Always hide" the tray icon for the program and it's less intrusive.
  
  I do agree, however, that we should be able to disable these features. They're not enough to stop me from using the program, though. I like it!
- vh1`, on 10/12/2007, -7/+5pbaehr got to it before me, just hide the tray icon
- joshfraz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4forgive me for being stupid... but how do i remove the tray icon?
- NoodleGuy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Right click on Taskbar > go to Properties > under "Notification Area" click on Customize > go to the icon you want to hide, and change it from "Hide when inactive" to "Always Hide"
- surfing, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Now we just need something to drag and drop system tray icons
- stritch000, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0> yeah i'm not going to use this because the last thing i want is yet another tray icon let alone a splash screen
  It's not like you have to keep it running. I love being able to move the buttons but I hardly ever do it. So I only run it when I need to use it.
- zobo77, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0If you right click the icon in the task tray, then go to options you can choose to hide the icon :-)
anastrophe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5awesome. have wanted this for years.
brjndr, on 10/12/2007, -29/+1Isn't gameplay CG too? Shouldn't the term be that it's not 'pre-rendered'?
thebusdriver, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Ive always wanted this. I dont know why it isnt built into windows already. It had better be in Vista.
- HyperX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1its not going to be in vista they still havent caught onto the plot
Fhajad, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1That's preatty sweet, most definatly going to get it
smadore, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1this works much better than other apps I have tried. I like it!! : )
vileS, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I was just wanting something like this yesterday. Kick ass, I'd digg twice if I could.
dtfinch, on 10/12/2007, -35/+10You really have nothing to gain by rearranging your taskbar buttons. It's like drag and drop tabs in Firefox. Everyone's excited about rearranging their Firefox tabs, but nobody does it, and it's buggy on Linux.
- EndofEternity, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14Nobody does it? Speak for yourself, just because you don't use that many tabs doesn't mean other people don't find this functionality useful.
- junkfood, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15I use the drag-n-drop tab functionality in Firefox daily. Love it.
- sremick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12I also disagree. I find the reodering of tabs in Firefox to be immensely useful and use it all the time. Likewise I've been agonizing about the lack of similar functionality on the Windows taskbar.
- RSCruiser, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1There's plenty to gain from rearranging tabs. Middle clicking links from multiple websites and being able to group them on the tab bar is SO much easier than having to dig through the bar for each page you've opened.
- redivider, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20"You really have nothing to gain by rearranging your taskbar buttons. It's like drag and drop tabs in Firefox. Everyone's excited about rearranging their Firefox tabs, but nobody does it, and it's buggy on Linux."
  
  What you should have said was:
  
  I really have nothing to gain by rearranging my taskbar buttons. It's like drag and drop tabs in Firefox. Everyone else is excited about rearranging their Firefox tabs, but I don't do it, and it's buggy on Linux.
  
  See how less relevant your comment is when you only speak for yourself instead of making meaningless assumptions about what everyone else supposedly does?
- chamblah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I actually do have something to gain from this. On my work machine I have. spread across two monitors, 24 open windows/apps.
  
  it's nice keeping like windows together and if you have to restart some apps it's very nice getting them back in a certain order.
- turgiddahlia, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2Congratulations on being a ***** retard.
aroedl, on 10/12/2007, -17/+10That's so exciting... for a windows user...
- junkfood, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I miss my taskbar when I'm using my Mac. I liked Expose for about a day. Then I turned it off because it started popping up all the time - even in the middle of typing emails.
- bitweever, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3What are you talking about? Expose doesn't 'pop up'. It's incredibly useful, I keep finding myself trying to use it on my PC at work.
- pornel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm used to OS X Dock and I'm annoyed by variable, unpredictable positions of applications on Windows taskbar. I hope this app will help.
vx69, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1See what I want to know is how I can extend my taskbar to my other monitor. But apart from that this looks kind of cool.
- KiltedMile, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4You can use UltraMon to extend onto multi-monitors - works like a charm!
- thegoodknife, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1yes, ultramon adds some great functionality to multi screen systems. also i believe nvidia and ATI also have similar settings in their video settings
- clydej, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1vx69,
  
  Ultramon will do what you want and lots more. It's not free but, if you use multiple monitors, it's well worth it. It's the best utility of its kind.
- kcb2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I used a cheap program for dual monitors - http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/ It has dual taskbars and works pretty well.
  
  (Damn...I spend 2 minutes looking up a link and 3 people beat me to responding)
- coolin86, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I use a freeware alternative called Oscar's MultiMon toolbar. Sometimes a little buggy and not quite as powerful, but free and useful for 99% of the times that I am using 2 or even 3 monitors. Check it out:
  
  http://www.mediachance.com/free/multimon.htm
- spectre_25gt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I was all set to buy this till I found out how much it costs. 40 bucks for this? It's nice being able to have two separate wallpapers and a nice gradient or the background, but not at that price.
EndofEternity, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1WOW, this is cool! Thank you to whoever found this!!!
barrabus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This is incredibly awesome. I'd put up with an extra five taskbar icons just to use it. Not being able to switch the taskbar around has always been one of my pet peeves.
slack31337, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1sweet sweet love. this will subdue my OCD about where taskbar icons are ordered.
- synergy79, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yeah, this and allSnap and im all set.
  http://ca.geocities.com/ivanheckman@rogers.com/
Poolshark19, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2i just installed it...very nice! ill go with my ebay rating system- Good Digg Digg +++++
pupkind, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2No digg until I can do it without a mouse :)
Moskie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3For those who, like me, are still using windows 2000, try this out:

http://users.forthnet.gr/pat/efotinis/programs/taskarrange.html

probably not as quick/intuitive as the program linked here, but it gets the job done.
- coolguy69, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1yep I prefer this ... no tray icon, no splash screen .. and no extra background program running for no use most of the time.. what its missing is the drag and drop way .. now if only I can drag the bars in the taskbar instead of in the list! (when the program is running_
chris_k, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Bummer, no Win 2k support... Great idea, too bad work computers don't use XP.
joelsp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This made my day. I am a Mac User by nature, but at work, when using windows, I have often wished I could do this. Now I can, and you da man.
Marketeer, on 10/12/2007, -6/+0awesome
FatMagic, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1sweet!
abiding99, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1This is excellent. I had just downloaded TaskArrange, but this is much much better, exactly what I was looking for.
chris_k, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This one works drag and drop for Win 2k, as suggested by SeanMC above, added google translate goodness
http://www.google.com/translate?langpair=jp|en&u=hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA013430/program/taskbarpp/main.html
- idris, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The problem with Taskbar++ is that it requires you to hold "Alt" while you drag. It also has a bigger overhead. With TaskbarShuffle, you only need to drag. No hotkeys, no overhead.
MemoryDump, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1very nice.. and I'm surprised this didn't surface up sooner.. does seem like a no brainer.. good digg
now to see how long it takes MS to disable it in their next hotfixes.
SpoBo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH!!!!!!
finally someone with the same idea as me but with some good coding skills. :D
missinghref, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Unfortunately, it doesn't work with a second monitor task bar like Ultramon (one of the greatest windows utilities in the world): http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/tour/smart_taskbar.asp
- veritech, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1if this what i think it is, my friend is gonna love you, and as dual display user as of tomorrow, i love you too.
  Thanks
peerk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9I can honestly say in my 11 years using the taskbar I have never wanted to rearrange the buttons.

Oh the joy of being OCD free!
- sundancekid503, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I have to agree. I just don't see the appeal. Even when I have 15 apps open at once, it's painfully easy to find what I'm looking for with just a quick glance. I don't really see the benefit in an app like this except for suppressing OCD urges.
  
  Plus it has a splash screen? No thanks....
- winampman2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It has nothing to do with OCD. I dont use grouping because its stupid. I use 2 rows for my task bar because I usually have 20+ things in my taskbar. 5 of them are usually Explorer windows, plus at least 3 word documents. But they're all scattered through the taskbar. It becomes very annoying just trying to find a program on the task bar, so being able to re-organize the programs on the taskbar is very useful. That way, I can have all the icons on the left be Explorer windows, and everything else on the right side.
- CedanticPunt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Imagine your machine has been on for a month. You opened Firefox (as an example) first. You then open up 20 more apps. Firefox's tab is on the left. You then have to restart Firefox (to install an extension, say). Firefox is now on the far right. But you've been using your machine every day for a month and you're used to it being on the right. So now you have to get used to its change of position, or restart your machine.
stevievep, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2Reported as: exclamation point abuse
jmerox, on 10/12/2007, -1/+40I'm this program's author.... few points:

1) Reason for the splash screen is because I'd get complaints from users saying they didn't know the program was loaded when they first ran it, so I had to do something visual. I can make an option to hide the splash screen or whatever, didn't realize it was such a faux pas. ;)

2) Reason for the tray icon is so you can have the option to turn it on and off, etc. I can run it as a service, but then people would get pissed that they couldn't turn it off and that their computers got hax0rd by mad crazy viruses. Suppose I can make a "run as service" option.

3) Other programs like taskbar++ make you press a hotkey for like 3 seconds to activate functionality and such... I don't write software I find already exists unless I can make it "better."

Just email me any suggestions, I'll gladly implement whatever makes sense.

-Jay
- info, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Did you use GPL license?
- veritech, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Nice one
  
  Dev's represent! ^_^
- joshrt, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4You're my hero.
  
  No, seriously.
- dsimonpower, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1You do those two things, and the program will be perfect. Nice work and thanks :)
- IncognitoCraven, on 10/12/2007, -2/+01) They're idiots
  
  2) They're idiots. Also, you are trying to write to the wrong place in the registry to set it to autorun (not HKCU, so it fails for nonadmin users). Besides that, what's wrong with using the startup folder of the Start Menu?
  
  Finally, consider speaking with the author of The Wonderful Icon and getting this long sought
  functionality in there http://thewonderfulicon.com.nyud.net:8080/
  
  Otherwise, quite useful. Just this week I was searching for a tool to do this, found Taskbar and the for-fee Button Boggie from PC Magazine. I ended up opting for Taskbar Shuffle.
- kolbyjack, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0IncognitoCraven: Funny, I was thinking the same thing, but in reverse. TWI is written by a friend of mine, and I'm going to send him this link later today.
- coolguy69, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11) consider doing an option such that its a standalone program, no installation needed.
  2) consider not putting it as a background or service, but only when I need it (ie, i will start the program myself, arrange the taskbar, and then close)
  customization is key :)
MrSpontaneous, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1What kind of memory footprint does this have?
- veritech, on 10/12/2007, -1/+34Mb, with a single window open, i'm not sure how the number of applications affects it, but if you run firefox, this is the last thing you should be concerned with... ^_^
- info, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Ditto Internet Explorer.
jj555298, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Maybe we should donate?
cfazzini, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Doesn't seem to work on x64 :(
veritech, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Now i just have to sneak this on to my work PC...
Omnikrys, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Awesome find. I'll get some serious use out of this. it always bugs me when I have project windows and they aren't in order. I'm always hitting the wrong one, no more!
ThatsHowIRoll, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I love the directions:

1. Click Start > Settings > Taskbar and Start Menu
2. UNcheck the "Group similar tasbar buttons" option if it's checked
3. Click the OK button
4. Enjoy feeling less retarded
ShapeGSX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Doesn't work with x2vnc. :(
timan72, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Doesn't work on my machine. If someone has the same problem, use TaskArrange instead (http://users.forthnet.gr/pat/efotinis/programs/taskarrange.html ). You have to start it though it before rearranging.
5555, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Excellent! I was just telling my co-worker last week how annoyed I was that XP doesn't have such a no-brainer feature like this. Cheers to the author.
timan72, on 10/12/2007, -14/+2Doesn't work on my machine. If someone has the same problem, use TaskArrange instead (http://users.forthnet.gr/pat/efotinis/programs/taskarrange.html ). You have to start it though it before rearranging.
timan72, on 10/12/2007, -14/+2Doesn't work on my machine. If someone has the same problem, use TaskArrange instead (http://users.forthnet.gr/pat/efotinis/programs/taskarrange.html ). You have to start it though it before rearranging.
timan72, on 10/12/2007, -14/+2Doesn't work on my machine. If someone has the same problem, use TaskArrange instead (http://users.forthnet.gr/pat/efotinis/programs/taskarrange.html ). You have to start it though it before rearranging.
dmron, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1This is handy. Why this hasnt been built into Windows since day one is beyond me. Stupid M$
norick, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1doesn't work for me, too bad.

Maybe because I have a 64bits cpu?
- 15charmaxwtf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2and 64bit OS?
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Drag and drop your Windows taskbar buttons!

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