Minor Visual Tweak in Vista

[MJ4H]

OK, I'm in Vista and I have a minor interface issue. This is one of my OCD things, though, so I really would love some help fixing this.

I have my taskbar vertical and on the right side. As you can see below, my systray icons are much closer together than my quicklaunch icons. With my current taskbar size, which I do not want to change, I can fit 5 icons per row in systray, but only 4 in quicklaunch bars. This bugs me to no end. I must find a way to make the QL icons closer together so I can fit 5 in that row. Can someone help me?

http://pwatts14.googlepages.com/taskbar.jpg

Here is what I've found so far:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER
Control Panel
Desktop
WindowMetrics

There are a few things in here that look like they might do it, but they don't at least as far as I can tell. Even after rebooting, I see no difference when I change the relevant looking ones, and I don't like experimenting in registry editing. I think this is actually for desktop icons or something, which you can already change via control panel. I just can't find anything that can do this, but it just has to be somewhere, doesn't it?

Is there anyone that knows about this crap that can help? I don't even know if I need to do something to make those changes show up or if I need to reboot or what.

Help!

[MJ4H]

Hopeful, but not optimistic bump.

[adubroff]

Hopeful, but not optimistic bump.

Well, I figured out what is happening, but I'm not sure there's a solution.

In windows vista, there's a spacer between "system" type things in the systray and "things that run on top of the operating system" type things. That spacer is taking up the rest of your top row....if you were horizontal it'd look a bit more natural. I'm not sure there's a way to change that spacer.

[Antmeister]

I know what you are trying to do, but I don't know of any easy way to change the spacing between the quick launch icons. Because of that I use another application to organize my quick launch application instead. If you go that route, it may help you in this situation. The application is called Pegtop PStart (http://www.pegtop.net/start/) and it resides in your systray with the rest of your icons. With this you can organize your favorite apps with spacers and folders and do away with your quick launch bar if you wish.

http://www.pegtop.net/images/screens/start02.gif

[MJ4H]

Eh, single click is required for me. I already can organize a start menu like that. I want them to be single click rows on the taskbar. Is that possible with that one? I'm open to it if it is.

[Fidatelo]

I think the solution to your problem is to stop wasting 4 feet of screen real estate on a task bar.

[MJ4H]

No, that will not help me make my quicklaunch icons closer together, which is my problem.

[Antmeister]

Eh, single click is required for me. I already can organize a start menu like that. I want them to be single click rows on the taskbar. Is that possible with that one? I'm open to it if it is.

With that application, instead of the folder organization that you see, you can have a group of icons with separators between them. However, that will still add one additonal click since you have to click on the icon in the systray and then click the application. But it should defintely help with that OCD.

I think the solution to your problem is to stop wasting 4 feet of screen real estate on a task bar.

And this is why I mentioned this solution. The only thing you work with is the systray. Another option to get rid of the taskbar altogether to maximize your desktop space is Launchy (http://www.launchy.net/). What's cool about this one is that you can bring it up using a shortcut and simply type in the name of the application you are looking for. The only problem is I haven't tried it for Windows Vista since it was developed for Windows XP.

[MJ4H]

Yeah, trouble is I'm aware of pretty much all the alternatives. I like Launchy ok, but it doesn't work as well as I'd like and is ridiculously resource heavy for what it does. It also requires far more work to launch a program than just a single click on the quick launch bar. The other one adds an extra click, and like I said, I can already do things with multiple clicks, I'm after single click, everything already visible and clickable at all times.

I guess I'm just going to be stuck with all that useless padding room on my bar for now. Thanks anyway. I'll keep looking.

Edit: and wasn't trying to be a jerk about the taskbar thing to fidatelo, but I'm already aware of my choices for how to configure a taskbar, and I've decided based on many factors, that this where and how I want mine. The problem is maximizing the space I have allotted for it in this orientation, not choosing another orientation.