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Supercharge your taskbar dock
Published on December 12, 2006 By jimmyyy In ObjectDock
Many users ask2 questions:
How do I Make my Object dock bar appear exactly the way my widows’ taskbar appears.

AND
When I make my windows task bar hidden, it no longer reserves that space. The bottom of my open applications move into the place were my windows taskbar was. If I have my objectdock dock is not hidden, It overlaps on top of my application and I can’t access this area of the application. How do I hide the widows taskbar but preserve this area so my applications can’t move into it.

The answer is YES to both.

So The loaded Question.
How do I Make my Object dock bar appear exactly the way my widows taskbar appears & unhidden. With start menu on the left , then shortcuts, then open applications and then system tray icons and date & time on the fare right. AND (the question) how do I make my original windows taskbar invisible, that it works as a placeholder so applications can’t open into the area were it was, making it impossible to select the bottom area of the application.


ANSWER

Load 3 docks to this area of your screen.

Dock on Bottom Left - holds first the windows start docklet icon, the remaining are with ‘separators’ are shortcuts to internet, network, hard drives, folders, applications, whatever.

Dock on Bottom center - put no shortcuts in it and in "Dock Settings" select 'Show Running Tasks’. This shows all your open applications folders etc.

Dock on far right – again put no shortcuts in it and in "Dock Settings" select "Show system tray icons on the dock." Ps. you can add a couple docklets here like a clock or calendar.

Re not hiding these 3 docks.
Its much more convenient to have the taskbar area showing all the time. For example you can glance down to see what apps. are currently running, check the time, glance for new email, glance to see if buddies are online, or just look at your system tray icons, all without having to move a lazy finger or mouse. So I highly recommend not hidden any of these 3 docks. Or that all 3 docks on the bottom of screen have "hide dock" unselected.

The trick: Make your widows taskbar invisible. NOT HIDDEN.
So the 2nd Question again –
"When I make my windows task bar hidden, it no longer reserves that space. The bottom of my open applications move into the place were my windows taskbar was. If I have my objectdock dock is not hidden, It overlaps on top of my application and I can’t access this area of the application. How do I hide the widows taskbar but preserve this area so my applications can’t move into it."

ANSWER
Make the windows task bar not "hidden" but simply invisible. There is some free software that does this, in-fact some graphics cards like INVIDIA, can make your widows taskbar up to 75% invisible but that’s not good enough, it looks dumb. The one I use thats real simple is called "Actual Transparent Window" it is a trial version but never quits working after the 30 days, just sends a pop up to the screen like once a day reminding you to buy it. Its also cheap if you choose to by it later.

If Using Actual Transparent Window
Once installed, in configurations, unselect everything except "task bar".
Then select the tab "transparency effect" make sure transparency effect box is selected & first set it to like 50% to make sure your doing it right.
Under "actions" select " Launch actual transparent windows" when that works move the slider to100% then reselect " Launch actual transparent windows".

PSS. There is a icon for the startmenu docklet should come out on Friday (pending review) that makes your start menu ‘Full Size’ - just like your Microsoft windows icon.
NICE

Now you have an Xtream Nitro Supercharged Taskbar. killa

Comments
on Dec 12, 2006
nice info
on Dec 12, 2006
Question - are you using the latest OD+ 1.5? I never checked this feature in older versions, but in the Dock Settings screen, under Positioning, is "Reserve edge of screen". This will reserve the docked edge of the screen and shrink maximized application windows so they don't overlap.

Personally, I've never been bothered by the overlap. The only non-auto-hiding dock I have is the center-bottom of the screen. Whever I have some icons or something I want to click down there (rarely), I just unmaximize the window, or I have a separator in the middle of the dock, I can grab the separator with the mouse and drag downward to shrink the icon size, then drag it upward to grow it back later.
on Dec 13, 2006
Jimer,

Nope OD 1.2 & prior versions don't have that option. So if your running 1.5 you wont have this problem or need this work around. Thanks for the info.
on Jan 07, 2007
This is an old article!, an update can be found here.Link