Creative Desktop Tips – Windows Toolbar
It's strange, but one of the least used yet most powerful features of Vista and XP is the Windows toolbar. Least used perhaps because people like to work the way they've always liked to work. Despite being amongst the most powerful, the flexibility of the Windows toolbar isn't always readily understood without a bit of exploration.
Here's a couple of really useful (and little known) desktop tips which could radically alter the way you use your desktop simply by adjusting a few Windows settings. First though, I'm going to hold up a work colleague for a bit of gentle fun poking – and hope he forgives me later!
Time for some desktop change
Passing by his workspace, I noticed his computer desktop display was absolutely loaded with more than one Windows shortcut, documents, bits of code, the odd MP3 - and I mean odd.......... .
“How do you manage to work like that,” I asked.
“Very easily,” he replied. “I know where everything is because it's all in the same place.”
I pointed out some files. “OK then. Zip up those docs there and mail them to me would you?”
“Are you going to watch?” he asked. “I don't like people watching.....”
Instead, I watched his tongue peek out from his mouth in concentration while his eyes slipped over the icons. Two minutes later he'd achieved his task, albeit with a little forehead sweat. Forehead sweat is understandable when someone has to look at over a hundred icons every time they want an application. Even if they're grouped, a 20 inch screen is still a helluva lot of desktop, and a cluttered desktop bedevils many of us. You wonder why some people never get the hint a little desktop change might be in order.
I pointed at his desk. “Do you mind?”
“Be my guest. Just don't lose anything!”
I found an empty space on his desktop and right-clicked it. <New> <Folder> and when it was created, I right clicked the folder icon and selected <Rename>. I called it 'Music', right clicked again, selected <Properties> <Customize> <Change Icon>, and selected a musical one. <OK> then <Apply>. His desktop folder was created. I scooped up all his mp3s and dumped them in the folder.
“What's so clever?” He was bridling a little. “Most people know how to do that. And do you want to know why I don't have desktop folders? It's because when I open them I can't see the applications and files underneath without minimising it. Sort of defeats the object.”
“Watch,” I said. I left clicked on the folder icon and dragged it to the edge of the screen as far as it would go, and then released it.
“Wow! I never knew Vista did that!” he exclaimed.
“Hmmmmm. XP does it too,” I told him.
Tip number two – using the Windows Taskbar
You have a number of applications open and minimised to the Windows taskbar. The conventional way of swapping between tasks is to mouse-click the application or file in the taskbar to bring it up. Less well known is this method of navigating – an extremely useful one, particularly if you're using a laptop.
Hold down the 'alt' key, now press the 'tab' key. Each time you press 'tab', you'll move from task to task. Release the 'alt' key when you've moved to the task you want.
For those who know about these wrinkles, please accept my apologies and recognise that if I'd titled this article on desktop tips 'Grandma Teaches Egg Sucking to Geeks', it wouldn't Google very well. On the other hand most people don't, which is a shame - and the purpose behind writing this piece. (Winks).