Working with Toolbars, the Taskbar, and the System Tray

By now you're probably familiar with the Windows Taskbar; the solid bar that typically sits at the bottom of your screen and holds buttons for any applications that are open at the time. You're probably less familiar with Windows toolbars, which look kind of like the Taskbar, but hold specific groups of icons.

Read on to learn how to customize the Taskbar, the toolbars, and the System Tray that sits to the right of the Taskbar at the bottom of the screen.

Moving the Taskbar

The default position for the Taskbar is horizontally across the bottom of the screen. If you don't like it there, you can move it to the top or to either side of the screen.

Just follow these steps:

1.	Point to a part of the Taskbar where no buttons appear.
2.	Click with the left mouse button and drag the Taskbar to another edge of the screen. You see a shaded line that indicates the new position of the Taskbar.
3.	Release the mouse button.

Windows XP introduces the concept of locking the Taskbar. When the Taskbar is locked, you can't move it. To lock or unlock the Taskbar, right-click an open area of the Taskbar, and either check or uncheck the Lock the Taskbar option.

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If you'd rather have the Taskbar constantly visible, check the Keep the Taskbar on Top of Other Windows option.

Hide the Taskbar

If you're running Windows XP on a small display (640 x 480 resolution, for example), you might not want the Taskbar taking up screen space all the time. For these situations, Windows XP lets you hide the Taskbar and recall it only when you need it.

1.	Right-click an open area of the Taskbar and select Properties from the pop-up menu.
2.	When the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box appears, select the Taskbar tab, shown in Figure 2.12. Figure 2.12. Change the appearance of the Taskbar from the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box.
3.	Check the Auto-Hide the Taskbar option.
4.	Click OK to close the dialog box.

This configuration automatically hides the Taskbar so that your applications can use the entire screen. To display the Taskbar again, all you have to do is move your cursor to the very bottom of the screen. The Taskbar then pops up for your use.

Resizing the Taskbar

You may have noticed that when the Taskbar is positioned horizontally, the Taskbar buttons become smaller the more applications you open. If you open too many applications, the Taskbar buttons become so small that you can't read the whole name of each application.

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If you make a vertical Taskbar narrow enough, only the application icons show, without words. (If you point to the icon, a ToolTip pops up to show you its name.)

By adjusting the size of the Taskbar, you can create a taller Taskbar so that multiple buttons can stack on top of each other. In addition, if you choose to position the Taskbar along one of the sides of the desktop, you may want to adjust the Taskbar width to display wider or narrower buttons.

However your Taskbar is positioned, you can resize it by following these steps:

1.	Position your cursor at the edge of the Taskbar, where the pointer becomes a double arrow. (If the Taskbar is at the bottom of the screen, just point to the upper edge of the Taskbar.)
2.	Click the left mouse button and drag the edge to the size you want.
3.	Release the mouse button.

Grouping Taskbar Buttons

The old problem of having too many buttons on too small a Taskbar has been addressed by a new feature in Windows XP. By default, similar buttons are grouped together and multiple documents (for the same application) are stacked together on a single button.

If you'd rather not use this button-grouping feature, open the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box, select the Taskbar tab, and uncheck the Group Similar Taskbar Buttons option.

Adding Toolbars to the Taskbar

Windows XP also lets you dock additional toolbars to the Taskbar. Each toolbar contains a group of icons that enables you to perform selected tasks, such as launching programs or connecting to Web sites.

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You can resize any toolbar you've added to the Taskbar. Just move your cursor to the far left of the toolbar until the cursor changes to a double-arrow, click the left mouse button, and drag the toolbar to the desired size. You can also stack toolbars on top of one another, as shown in Figure 2.13.

Figure 2.13. The four toolbars built into Windows XP (plus the standard Taskbar), all stacked on top of each other.

Windows XP has several predesigned toolbars, including the following (all shown in Figure 2.13):

Address. This toolbar is an URL box. Type the address for any Web page into this box, press Enter, and Windows connects to the Internet, launches Internet Explorer, and displays the Web page you entered.
Links. This toolbar displays five selected links (by default, five links on Microsoft's Web site).
Desktop. This toolbar displays all the shortcut icons currently on your desktop. It's a good way to have ready access to your shortcuts if your desktop is perpetually cluttered.
Quick Launch. This toolbar displays three icons for basic Internet use: Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, and my personal favorite, Show Desktop (which minimizes all open windows on your computer, so you can actually see your desktop).

To dock a toolbar to the Taskbar, follow these steps:

1.	Right-click anywhere on the Taskbar.
2.	When the pop-up menu appears, select Toolbars, and then select the toolbar you want to display.

To remove a toolbar from the Taskbar, follow these steps:

1.	Right-click anywhere on the toolbar to display the pop-up menu.
2.	Select Toolbars, and then deselect that particular toolbar.

Adding Icons to the Quick Launch Toolbar

Microsoft lets you add your own icons to the Quick Launch toolbar. I use this to add those programs I use most often to that toolbar, so they are always a single-click away. (In my case, I've added icons for Lotus Notes and my virtual private network to the toolbar.)

The easy way to add an icon to the Quick Launch toolbar is to grab a program icon from the Programs menu or My Computer and drag it onto the toolbar. You can also add icons by using My Computer to open the Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\ folder, and then selecting File, Create Shortcut. Note that this is a hidden folder you have to tell Windows to show hidden folders to use this method.

Creating a New Toolbar

In addition to the four preselected toolbars I just told you about, you can also create your own personal toolbars. Just follow these steps:

1.	Right-click anywhere on the Taskbar.
2.	When the pop-up menu appears, select Toolbars, and then select New Toolbar.
3.	When the New Toolbar dialog box appears, choose a disk or folder or enter a Web address and click OK.
4.	The new toolbar now appears, docked to the Taskbar. If you selected a disk or folder, the contents of that disk or folder appear in the toolbar. If you entered a Web address, that address appears in the toolbar.

You can also create a toolbar by dragging a disk or folder from My Computer onto the Taskbar. If you drag a disk or folder from My Computer to another side of the screen, a new toolbar is created there instead of on the Taskbar.

Configuring Toolbars

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To move a toolbar to another side of the screen, simply drag the toolbar to the desired spot and then release the mouse button. If you drop the toolbar into the middle of your screen, it becomes an open window on your desktop.

Windows XP provides several ways for you to customize how your toolbars are displayed. You can adjust the size of the icons and how the icons appear.

1.	Right-click in an open area of the toolbar you want to configure. This displays a pop-up menu.
2.	To display the title of the toolbar, check Show Title. Uncheck this option to hide the name of the toolbar.
3.	To display large icons on the toolbar, select View and check Large. To display small icons, select View and check Small.
4.	To display a label for each icon, check Show Text. Uncheck this option to hide labels.

Manage the System Tray

The System Tray is that part of the screen that displays icons for utilities that Windows runs in the background. Sometimes other applications put their own icons in the System Tray, too. These third-party icons sometimes indicate that a program is running, and sometimes make it easier to launch that program (by clicking on the icon in the Tray).

The problem with the System Tray is that it gets abused. If you have a lot of little utilities running and a lot of programs that have installed their own icons in the Tray, the Tray gets awfully crowded and starts to expand. The more icons in the Tray, the wider the Tray. If the Tray gets too wide, it starts borrowing space from the Taskbar, which is also prone to overcrowding. You only have so much space along the bottom of the screen, after all.

Windows XP introduces a solution to this overcrowding problem by hiding those System Tray icons that you really don't need to see. The important icons, such as the system clock, remain visible in what Microsoft now calls the Notification Area. The other icons are now hidden until you click the left-arrow button at the edge of the Tray (shown in Figure 2.14).

Figure 2.14. Click the arrow to expand the System Tray.

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By default, the system clock is always displayed in the Notification Area. If you'd rather not display the clock, uncheck the Show the Clock option

If you don't like hiding your icons, you can turn off this feature by following these steps:

1.	Right-click an open area of the Taskbar and select Properties from the pop-up menu.
2.	When the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box appears, select the Taskbar tab.
3.	Uncheck the Hide Inactive Icons option.
4.	Click OK.

If you're really into the details, you can configure the "hide when inactive" status for each icon in your system tray. Just go to the Taskbar tab in the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box and click the Customize button. When the Customize Notifications dialog box appears (as shown in Figure 2.15), select a particular icon and set its Hide When Inactive behavior. Check the item to hide it, uncheck it to make sure that it's always visible.