Notification Area


Notification Area

The notification area, commonly known as the Tray , is the small area at the far right (or bottom) of the Taskbar, which, by default, holds the clock and the tiny, yellow speaker icon. With the exception of the clock, the purpose of the tray is to hold status icons (see Figure 3-17) placed there by Windows and other running applications. Hold the mouse cursor over the clock to see the date temporarily or right-click on an empty area of the Taskbar and click Properties to turn the clock on or off and change other settings. (Sorry, no permanent date is available without a third-party utilitysee http://www.annoyances.org/.)

Figure 3-19. The Notification Area (Tray), located on the far end of your Taskbar, holds the clock and icons for some running processes

The Tray can be a convenient place for applications to display information and quick access to certain features, but there is little standardization among Tray icons. Some icons are clicked, others are double-clicked, others require a right-click, and some don't get clicked at all. Some flash, some don't. Most icons can be disabled, but some just won't go away. Most support tooltips, so you can find out what each icon does by holding the mouse over it for a second or two.

The only way to turn the notification area off completely is to hide each of the icons (and the clock) individually. However, you can selectively hide icons by going to Control Panel [Appearance and Themes] Taskbar and Start Menu Taskbar tab Customize. See "Taskbar and Start Menu Properties in Chapter 4 for more information, and See Chapter 5 for additional settings that affect the Taskbar, the notification area, and the icons that routinely appear there.

Notes

  • Right-click or double-click on the clock when it is displayed to adjust the system date and time. (You can also get there by opening the Date and Time properties in the Control Panel.)

  • The System Tray is available to any application that chooses to useor misuseit. For example, both AOL and RealPlayer install a startup icon in the System Tray (as well as just about anywhere else they can put one)a clear abuse of the intended purpose.

  • The language indicator is useful only if multiple keyboard layouts are enabled. Click on the indicator to display a pop-up menu that lets you switch between available keyboard layouts.

  • The power status indicator is generally useful only on laptops. It shows a plug when the system is connected to AC power, and a battery when the system is running on the battery. The height of the color in the battery gives a rough idea of how much power is left; to get a more precise estimate, hold the pointer over the indicator until a Tooltips bubble pops up showing the percentage of the remaining charge.

  • The PC card indicator gives you a quick way to get to the Control Panel PC Card property sheet. This indicator is useful if you will be taking PC cards in and out of your system frequently, since the system prefers to be notified before you do so.

  • The "Super-Fast User Switcher" is a notification area-based tool that allows you to switch between configured users simply by clicking on its tray icon; see Appendix D for details.



Windows XP in a Nutshell
Windows XP in a Nutshell, Second Edition
ISBN: 0596009003
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 266

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