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I use Windows 7 + 2 monitors (plan to have 3) and prefer less icons cluttering my Taskbar, because the taskbar space is limited + I use the wide/large Taskbar icons option, which makes each taskbar icon consume even more space.
So, I offer for Core Temp to have an option to only show in the Notification Area (formerly known as Tray area) even when the main window is on the screen (not minimized). And, I do not want to have the main Core Temp window minimized, because there is a LOT of space on the 2nd monitor - I want to always be able to glance at Core Temp window on the 2nd monitor and see the CPU readings.
Please consider adding this option for one of the next future versions.
For example, Winamp has this option. Also, Xfire by default used to do this.

Thanks for reading!

Thank you for this suggestion, it will be considered, and if it will be decided in favor of adding it you should see in the next release.

Any news on this? Will this option be added, or did you decide against it?
This would be very useful for all users with 2/3+ monitors.

Alright, this is going to sound strange, but apparently I completely forgot that that this feature is already there...
Go to Options --> Settings --> Windows 7 Taskbar and uncheck the bottom checkbox.
When you minimize Core Temp, the taskbar icon will be hidden as well.

The Coolest wrote:Alright, this is going to sound strange, but apparently I completely forgot that that this feature is already there...
Go to Options --> Settings --> Windows 7 Taskbar and uncheck the bottom checkbox.
When you minimize Core Temp, the taskbar icon will be hidden as well.

Sorry, no - actually, I want it the other way round - the Core Temp main window showing NORMALLY (NOT minimized), but no Core Temp button in the Taskbar - only an icon in the Notification Area (former Tray Area).
Of course, not all users have 2/3+ monitors, so make it an option we can turn on or off. On the other hand, this may be useful even for users with 1 monitor.

I suggest this because the program Taskbar button takes a lot of space (Windows 7 Taskbar setting set to "Combine when taskbar is full"), and that space is limited, because the Windows Taskbar is ONLY on the main monitor. And, I do not want to have the main Core Temp window minimized, because there is a LOT of space on the 2nd monitor - I want to always be able to glance at it and see the CPU readings.
I hope this makes the purpose of the option I want clearer.

NOTE: And I don't want to use any Windows 7 Gadgets.

Please see screenshot, I want the part in the red rectangle gone:
(as you can see, each taskbar button takes a LOT of space, because Windows 7 is set to "Combine when taskbar is full" - "Never combine" will work the same way)

I've looked into this. Removing the taskbar button really messes up with the look of the Window.


I do not believe it to be a major problem. I also think that most users actually use the taskbar in icon only mode, without text.

If your program is affected by removing the Taskbar icon and only showing the Tray/Notification area icon, then you must have a bug somewhere - what exact compiler do you use? Any special frameworks or skinning software?
Do you use Microsoft Visual Studio 2008? Is it C++ or .NET?
Please don't tell me you use C++ MFC.
Maybe you are doing the removal of the icon the wrong way, maybe something to do with the way the Tray/Notification area icon of the program is created.

I don't care what others or most users do - my Windows 7 Taskbar is on two rows, with text showing.
Sometimes I have 2-3 text files, plus 1 MS Word file plus of course some web browser open at the same time, and having the text file names showing helps a lot.
I just wanted this as an option, as there is plenty of space for extra 2-3 options in the Settings ---> General screen.
(When my Taskbar first row is filled, my extra Taskbar buttons flow into a 2nd row.)

EDIT:
NOTE: When I set ICQ to run in Vista SP2 Compatibility mode on my Windows 7 machine, the ICQ icon in the Taskbar disappears. And the ICQ window seems to be unaffected by this.
Yes, I know ICQ uses skins.
EDIT #2: I have several versions of MS Visual Studio here, plus several RAD Studio versions, and a lot of free time - maybe I can try this here in a test program of mine.

It has nothing to do with bugs. Removing the WS_EX_APPWINDOW extended style has no effect once a window is created with it present, meaning the window must be destroyed and created without said style to hide the taskbar button. What you see in the screenshot is using the WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW style, which changes the appearance of the window.
There are no frameworks used, just the standard Win32 APIs for creating and managing window styles.
It may be a design flaw, but Core Temp wasn't designed for this, and I'll have to see if there's a simple and reliable way around it.

The Coolest wrote:It has nothing to do with bugs. Removing the WS_EX_APPWINDOW extended style has no effect once a window is created with it present, meaning the window must be destroyed and created without said style to hide the taskbar button. What you see in the screenshot is using the WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW style, which changes the appearance of the window.
There are no frameworks used, just the standard Win32 APIs for creating and managing window styles.
It may be a design flaw, but Core Temp wasn't designed for this, and I'll have to see if there's a simple and reliable way around it.

OK, thanks for looking into this! I guess this means you use neither MFC nor the .NET C++ flavor - nice. .

I'm actually using a mix of C++ and Win32 APIs. Everything is compiled on VS2010, and I plan to upgrade to VS2012 once I decide to go with Win8 on my main system.

Got this to work and look properly.
Hold on for the next release.

The Coolest wrote:Got this to work and look properly.
Hold on for the next release.

Great! Please can you tell me how you did it?
I believe Windows 7 has some API functions that allow you to manage Taskbar buttons, but not sure if those work on Vista and WinXP.

I ended up using a trick they mentioned in their Taskbar MSDN article:

Managing Taskbar Buttons

The Shell creates a button on the taskbar whenever an application creates a window that isn't owned. To ensure that the window button is placed on the taskbar, create an unowned window with the WS_EX_APPWINDOW extended style. To prevent the window button from being placed on the taskbar, create the unowned window with the WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW extended style. As an alternative, you can create a hidden window and make this hidden window the owner of your visible window.

The Shell will remove a window's button from the taskbar only if the window's style supports visible taskbar buttons. If you want to dynamically change a window's style to one that doesn't support visible taskbar buttons, you must hide the window first (by calling ShowWindow with SW_HIDE), change the window style, and then show the window.

The window button typically contains the application icon and title. However, if the application does not contain a system menu, the window button is created without the icon.

If you want your application to get the user's attention when the window is not active, use the FlashWindow function to let the user know that a message is waiting. This function flashes the window button. Once the user clicks the window button to activate the window, your application can display the message.

When you toggle this option in Core Temp it will create a hidden windows and set it as the owner of Core Temp's window. Once you uncheck the option Core Temp's owner window is set to NULL and the hidden window is destroyed.
This setting is not using any Windows 7 features or APIs, but there is a Win7 only API as well. Look into ITaskbarList interfaces, and specifically ITaskbarList3 and ITaskbarList4.

Thanks, yeah, I couple of weeks ago I thought the way which Core Temp uses to show the CPU load/CPU temp/etc in the Taskbar is nice and decided to get some info on the Windows 7 Taskbar options/APIs, and encountered those ITaskbarList3 and ITaskbarList4 interfaces in the Microsoft MSDN documentation.

Please can you tell me how you will name the new option in the English and Russian versions of Core Temp?

I haven't done the Russian translation yet, but the placement of the controls is the same for every language.
Here's where it is in English.

OK, thanks.
Maybe you are aware of this, but with this option added, it will conflict with the Settings ---> Windows 7 Taskbar section ---> "Do not hide the taskbar button when minimized" setting.
Ideally, it would be nice to have a question dialog box to appear when you try to turn on/off one of the two options, saying that the other option setting creates a conflict, if that is the case.
If not, maybe Core Temp could hide or disable (gray out) the other option, when the first one is checked.
For example, if the "Hide taskbar button" is checked, for the other option to get hidden (or disabled) and vice-versa.
How do you plan to handle this?

Or a separate unrelated note, I have a suggestion regarding the word "Tray" in the Settings - the major desktop OSes that Core Temp works on are WinXP, Vista, Win7, Win8, and out of those only WinXP calls the Tray "Tray", for the newer OSes it is now the "Notification area".
So, I suggest for all settings/tabs that have the word "tray" in them to be changed to say "Notification area".
This includes:
1) The Settings tab that says "System Tray" and the "Tray icons" label in it.
2) The Display tab ---> "Close Core Temp to the system tray" setting.
3) Mention of "tray" in the program About screen.
In most other programs I use, the area is indeed called the "Notification area".
What do you think?

- At this point I'm not going to 'handle' it in any way. The conflict is not that serious, the 'Display' tab setting will override the 'Taskbar' tab setting.

- Regarding the renaming of the 'System Tray' to notification area, you have a point. Although getting the translations updated will be problematic. So I'll think about.

The Coolest wrote:- At this point I'm not going to 'handle' it in any way. The conflict is not that serious, the 'Display' tab setting will override the 'Taskbar' tab setting.

- Regarding the renaming of the 'System Tray' to notification area, you have a point. Although getting the translations updated will be problematic. So I'll think about.

1) OK then, sounds good.
2) For the 2nd issue, maybe you can change just the English and Russian versions for now (and I can translate the Bulgarian one), and then the other languages can be translated gradually one by one?

Yeah, you're right.
I'll change the strings.

What ever happened to this suggestion? It seemed from the mockup that you were going to add it, but on RC5, that option doesn't exist under the display tab.

I too would love to have this option so I can keep my taskbar clean.

Thanks again.

xlim3y wrote:What ever happened to this suggestion? It seemed from the mockup that you were going to add it, but on RC5, that option doesn't exist under the display tab.

I too would love to have this option so I can keep my taskbar clean.

Thanks again.

Arthur (the maker of Core Temp) said on Facebook he is waiting for some AMD parts to arrive, thus the version that has this option was delayed!
The version will be RC6.

Thanks for the update Naki

xlim3y wrote:Thanks for the update Naki

You're welcome!

From the RC6 Change Log;

- New: You can now hide the taskbar button and use the system tray icons to pop the window back up.

So yeah! Solved! Thank you both for suggesting and implementing.