Is it possible to change the color of the program tabs on the taskbar?

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Guest

We have to work with a lot of programs open and I've been trying to find
some kind of app where I can change to color of the app's on the taskbar
so that all those of the same type have the same color.

I'd have thought that an addon would be out there, but I can't find a
thing ! Is this possible (and if it is, How !).

Many thanks,

Steve
 
We have to work with a lot of programs open and I've been trying to find
some kind of app where I can change to color of the app's on the taskbar
so that all those of the same type have the same color.

I'd have thought that an addon would be out there, but I can't find a
thing ! Is this possible (and if it is, How !).
Click to expand...

Interesting idea. The only way this would be possible is if some custom app
completely took over the rendering of the taskbar (eg, something that goes
beyond WindowBlinds, which is just a reskin without any additional logic--at
least nothing that would achieve what you're after). That being said, I
can't say I've ever stumbled upon anything that tried to do that...
 
Homer said:
Interesting idea. The only way this would be possible is if some custom app
completely took over the rendering of the taskbar (eg, something that goes
beyond WindowBlinds, which is just a reskin without any additional logic--at
least nothing that would achieve what you're after). That being said, I
can't say I've ever stumbled upon anything that tried to do that...
Click to expand...

Well, thanks for the reply.

Just goes to show, the things you think would be simple turn out not to
be...

On a similar thought, I'd imagine that the same goes for the text colour
in the the tabs also ?
 
On a similar thought, I'd imagine that the same goes for the text colour
in the the tabs also ?
Click to expand...

Yes...

The thing is, if it was something that could assign different colors
automatically, Windows would have to provide some facilities to define
whatever criteria it is you want to use to associate with those colors. If
I understand correctly, your idea is something along the lines of having all
instances of notepad.exe show up in green, instances of IE in red, etc.

It's a start, but if anyone wanted to take the idea and turn it into an
actual program, I could see the desire to expand upon what those criteria
could be...

The taskbar's been fundamentally the same since Windows 95; I think it's
time somebody added some useful functionality to it in some creative
fashion...the Vista sidebar doesn't help here; I wanna see something that
will let me manage apps and visible windows in some new way...
 
Homer said:
Yes...

The thing is, if it was something that could assign different colors
automatically, Windows would have to provide some facilities to define
whatever criteria it is you want to use to associate with those colors. If
I understand correctly, your idea is something along the lines of having all
instances of notepad.exe show up in green, instances of IE in red, etc.

It's a start, but if anyone wanted to take the idea and turn it into an
actual program, I could see the desire to expand upon what those criteria
could be...

The taskbar's been fundamentally the same since Windows 95; I think it's
time somebody added some useful functionality to it in some creative
fashion...the Vista sidebar doesn't help here; I wanna see something that
will let me manage apps and visible windows in some new way...
Click to expand...
This is exactly why I thought there must be an app to do this, as you
say, the taskbars remained unchanged since the year dot...

Yes, you have the idea I was thinking, have all billing systems in
green, all rating in red, all detection in white, etc...

I'm just amazed that no ones written an app in all this time !!

Very many thanks for all your thoughts, maybe someone will read this and
write something (in which case, we'd both like 10%, OK ?)
 
No_Spam said:
Very many thanks for all your thoughts, maybe someone will read this and
write something (in which case, we'd both like 10%, OK ?)
Click to expand...


Wish I could help but I'm already working on a few projects that hack various aspects of Windows to allow greater customization.
There is one thing that might get a prospective programmer started though, PCMag's ButtonBoogie was recently rewritten to support
the XP taskbar which was different enough from previous versions that such tools ceased to work. Anyone who undertakes this task
will want to see how they managed to get to it.
 
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