+6
Completed

Remove vertical taskbar minimum width restriction

Anonymous 12 years ago updated by Michael Crabtree 10 years ago 17
Since Windows Vista, the minimum width of the vertical taskbar is set to 62 pixels. It would be great to get a minimum width of 32 pixels back, like in Windows XP. This works greatly with the superbar since Windows 7 if small icons are turned on (tested it with a CheatEngine hack) and does not cause any graphical issues.


Answer

+1
Answer
Completed
Implemented in v4.4.2 as an advanced option.
Under review

I looked at the issue, and there's a fundamental problem with it:

I've managed to overcome the limitation, but the issue is that the width restores back to explorer's minimum upon system restart. The thing is that explorer starts before the tweaker on system startup, so the tweaker can't prevent from explorer from resetting the width.

Thanks for investigating this, yeah, I noticed the same. I could live with that small moment between explorer startup and tweaker startup in which the taskbar has a 62 pixel width. It just became nasty to open up CheatEngine or an additional self-written program to resize it this "manually". If the tweaker could do it, it would be much more "automatic" and "leight-weight" (since the tweaker is running anyways for all the other great things).

I looked at the issue, and there's a fundamental problem with it:

I've managed to overcome the limitation, but the issue is that the width restores back to explorer's minimum upon system restart. The thing is that explorer starts before the tweaker on system startup, so the tweaker can't prevent from explorer from resetting the width.

+1
Answer
Completed
Implemented in v4.4.2 as an advanced option.
Thank you! I was watching it all the time and was so positively surprised it was implemented today, together with the tray icon width (even though that one fucks up after changing the screen resolution with a vertical taskbar).
You're welcome :)

> even though that one fucks up after changing the screen resolution with a vertical taskbar
What fucks up? Can you provide more details?
don`t work on windows 8.1 surface pro vertical taskbar is still fat and dont want to get smaller like in horisontal
I've tested it on Windows 8.1, and it worked for me. Did you actually set the option?
i rechecked it, now works)  
Thank you for this great feature, but no_width_limit doesn't wokr on secondary display.
Yes, it works only for the main taskbar.
I believe that adding support for the secondary taskbars isn't worth the complexity.
First, the secondary taskbars have a different mechanism that limits the width.
Second, the tweaker will have to remember the sizes of all available taskbars.
Hey, so regarding other monitors not being compatible with the no_width_limit option... I spent a few minutes messing around, I have found work around (sorta). It's disappointing that you can't resize the taskbar beyond the limits on all monitors, I understand why... just really wish it could be done!

I managed to drag my main display taskbar onto my secondary display, and it in-turn, moved my secondary display taskbar onto my main display. Once I discovered I could do this (might be a Windows 8.1 bug), I went to Screen Resolution to check what was up. My main display was still main, and secondary was still secondary.. but the taskbars were flipped.. Once I knew this I tried to make my 2nd display my main then reverted to see what would happen... (because I want my system tray to be on my main display, my main display is horizontal so sys. tray looks better there) but it kept the system tray icons on the 2nd display (main display taskbar). Am I making sense?
Here is my secondary taskbar after dragging...

Here is my main display taskbar after dragging ^

The (1) is highlighted as my main display, the larger is my secondary external monitor (2)... which has my main taskbar on it! So I managed to trick it half way! Any possible way at all, we can trick it all the way perhaps (since you said you don't want to go to the trouble to allow resized taskbars on other screens)? Any ideas? Thanks in advance!
Yes, I could reproduce this. Seems like an (accidental?) feature.
If you're asking whether it's possible to "just" put back the tray icons on your main monitor, than the answer is no. The main taskbar and the secondary taskbars work in a different way. Even though they look the same, and use the same task list, the outer controls (i.e. the taskbar itself) have different code bases. That's why they require different tricks to remove the width limit.
Ah, gotcha. Really sucks you can't do like what you could do in Windows 7 and do a couple things such as restart DWM and lock/unlock taskbar to allow resize... Really wish they allow taskbar resize to a smaller size in Windows 8, cause just because it may be beneficial for touch, for us mouse/keyboard users, it's just a eyesore.

I'll do some more searching around Google to see if there could be another way to do this, probably not.. but it would be great if you could on Win8!
Forgot to sign in, that Anonymous reply was me :P