How to minimize any program to tray. Computer educational program. How to minimize an application to the tray tray in WinForms

Good day, dear friends, readers, admirers, visitors and all other personalities! Once again I congratulate everyone on the upcoming holidays (it still seems like the old New Year is still there). Today we have a very interesting topic that, perhaps, will make your work with the computer a little more convenient.

Surely many of you have repeatedly asked the question: “How can I minimize this or that program to the tray?” (this is where the clock is, i.e. usually in the lower right corner). It’s just that sometimes there are a lot of applications open, and switching between them is not always convenient due to the fact that the Start panel is cluttered with lines of these very applications, or you simply want to keep the program open, but not, so to speak, in the visibility range.

Today, in fact, we’ll talk about how to minimize any program to the tray, as well as several other interesting things and possibilities.

General description of functionality

I think you all know what the title bar is (on the left is the system menu, on the right are buttons for switching display modes on the screen). Default in Windows We can, using this line and the button on it, only minimize, reduce/enlarge the entire screen or close the window. These very capabilities can be expanded using the program 4t Tray Minimizer Free.

The point is this: the program, so to speak, is built into the title bar and adds functions such as: minimize to tray, roll up/roll out a window, make a window transparent or pin the current one on top of all other windows.

That is, let’s say, as mentioned above, you have windows open 10 and it is extremely difficult for you to navigate them. Having installed the program, you can press, say, the newly appeared button " Minimize to tray" (Minimize to tray), drive the window itself into the tray, where it will have an icon of its application, by clicking on which the window can be expanded (see screenshot above).

Or, let’s say, you need to look at the desktop or window behind the open one. Then you press the button " Make transparent" (Make Transparent) and see what's happening on the back window or desktop.

Great feature" Make it on top of all windows" (Stay on top) Allows you to pin the window to the foreground. For example, when entering passwords on the Internet (this happens :)) you open your notepad with notes and click on the " On top of all windows", after which you copy and paste your login and password much faster (due to the fact that the window is always in the foreground, and does not go back when switching to another) than if you had to minimize the browser each time to copy data from the notepad .

Well, and the last function " Roll up the window" (Roll up/down). It allows you to, so to speak, minimize the window to the title bar, i.e. in a sort of stripe (see picture above), which is sometimes convenient when, again, many windows are open, some of which are not needed now, but will be needed in the very near future.

Installing and configuring the program

The installation is extremely simple, and the program is completely free (it’s just a pity that, in theory, there is no Russian language in it), but, breaking tradition, we’ll go through the simplest and most basic installation, as it is :)

To download this miracle of programming thought, use or go to and click on the little green button Download 4t Tray Minimizer Free. For clarity, screenshot:

Launch the downloaded file and press the button “ Next».

Then check the box “ I accept the agreement" and press the button " again Next».

After this, the program will ask you for the installation folder. Leave it as it is (or set your own) and press the button “ Next».

Then the program will ask you about the folder for creating shortcuts in the menu " Start" Once again we press the button that we already love (or, on the contrary, are fed up with) “ Next».

In the next window, the program will ask you to create a shortcut on the desktop. I think you won't need a shortcut, because... It’s more convenient to add the program to startup, but who cares. Press the button again Next».

And for the last time the program will ask you whether the settings you entered are correct. Click the button " Install».

Upon completion of the installation of the program, leave the first checkbox (in order to launch the program immediately) and uncheck the second one (in order to refuse to send emails) and press the button “ Finish».

Then the program settings window will launch. Click the button " Next».

Here we are asked to configure the program to autostart when the system starts (in fact, the “Launch 4t Tray Minimizer at Windows startup” checkbox), as well as to choose whether we need the program icon in the tray or not (in fact, the first circle says that it is needed, the second - which is not). Set the settings to your liking and press the long-suffering button again " Next".

Next, you can configure hotkeys for minimizing windows to tray. I recommend not changing anything here and continuing further with the button you know. Although, globally, at this stage you can set or remove hotkeys, it is better to leave one checkbox, namely " Minimize to tray"(see screenshot), which will allow you to use the combination " Shift+Esc" on the keyboard, minimize any program to tray, including a full-screen, say, game.

In the next window, put a circle “ Single click on its tray icon", if you want to maximize the window from the tray with one click of the left mouse button, or " Double click on its tray icon» to maximize windows by double-clicking. There is no particular point in touching the checkbox (installed in the screenshot " Activating 4t Tray Minimizer"responsible for turning program functions on and off using a keyboard shortcut" Ctrl+Alt+T"). Let's move on.

« Minimize To Tray» - minimize to tray;
Roll Up/Roll Down- roll up/roll out the window;
« Make Transparent» - make the window transparent;
Hide/Show The System Tray- hide/show tray.

After selecting... Well, yes, click on the button again Next».

Then the program will ask you what functions you want to see in the menu of the window itself (i.e. by right-clicking, see the screenshot below or on the right in the program settings window). I think that this function can be abandoned, because... We already have enough buttons. Although, of course, who cares:

Well, for the last time we press the button “ Finish", without touching the extra checkboxes, because they set exceptions.

After this, two windows will open. In the first one, uncheck " Show tips at startup" to disable the display of tips at startup, and click on the " Close" Just close the second window.

That's all, now all the above-described functions of the program are available to you 4t Tray Minimizer Free.

Afterword

As you can see, the program is very useful, because it allows you to save space on your desktop and time spent working with windows and applications. It is especially convenient sometimes to minimize the browser and mail, so that later you do not have to restart them 10 times, but simply open them by clicking in the tray. Well, the rest will be useful for some, not so much for others. For example, I have never found a good use for transparency or keeping a window on top, but I am happy to use minimizing (rolling) the window into one line or the ability to hide the application in the tray.

Something like that. As always, I will be glad to hear your additions, questions, feedback and so on. Write in the comments and stay with us;)

P.S. Thanks to team member Optimus for the existence of this article.

The Windows taskbar is a very convenient and useful feature of this system. What makes it even better is the tray - the place where applications running in the background are minimized. In this article I will tell you how to minimize a WinForms application to the tray, as well as how to let a background application make itself known using tooltips.

This simple task is done using the NotifyIcon object:

Like most objects in .NET, this one was designed to make a programmer's life easier. It is with the help of this control that we will install the application icon in the tray and also display tooltips.

Add a NotifyIcon object to your form. It has the following set of properties:

Be sure to specify the icon that will be displayed in the tray (Icon property). If you do not do this, then nothing will appear in the tray when you minimize the application.

To do this, add the following handler for the form's Resize event:

Private void Form1_Resize(object sender, EventArgs e) ( if (WindowState == FormWindowState.Minimized) Hide(); )

In this elementary piece of code, when we change the size of the form, we check whether its state has been changed to “Minimized”, and if so, we simply hide the program using the Hide() method. If we now run our application and click the Collapse button, we will get the following result:

Now it wouldn’t hurt to write down the logic for “expanding” the application from the tray when you double-click on the icon. To do this, we will use the DoubleClick event of the NotifyIcon class, namely, we will create the following handler for it:

Private void notifyIcon1_DoubleClick(object sender, EventArgs e) ( Show(); WindowState = FormWindowState.Normal; )

All we do in this handler is show the form using the Show() method and return the Normal state to the form.

As you can see, everything is quite simple and intuitive. And now, as promised, I’ll show you how the application can remind the user about itself using tooltips.

All you need to do is set the title of such a tooltip (BalloonTipTitle), its text (BalloonTipText) and show the tooltip using the ShowBalloonTip() method:

Private void Form1_Resize(object sender, EventArgs e) ( if (WindowState == FormWindowState.Minimized) ( Hide(); notifyIcon1.BalloonTipTitle = "The program was hidden"; notifyIcon1.BalloonTipText = "Обратите внимание что программа была спрятана в трей и продолжит свою работу."; notifyIcon1.ShowBalloonTip(5000); // Параметром указываем количество миллисекунд, которое будет показываться подсказка } } !}

As you can see, here I have expanded the Resize event handler, which now not only minimizes the application, but also shows a hint about this event for 5 seconds.

“Are there programs that allow you to minimize any application to the tray area?” I asked myself this question more than once, but somehow I didn’t have enough time to find similar ones. But one day, in a good mood, I decided to decorate my desktop a little.

I didn’t want to clutter up my taskbar, and I like small application icons better than stripes on which you can’t really read anything anyway.

And if there are too many such windows open, then you definitely have to look for some display alternatives. I didn't search for long.

Having entered several search queries into the well-known Google, I found exactly what I needed. To be honest, the search gave me many different options: from the most complex programs to those that are too simple and outdated. But after analyzing all the results, I understood. That there is only one program worthy of my and your attention. It doesn’t particularly stand out with its interface, since it doesn’t have one at all, but that doesn’t stop it from coping with its responsibilities.

As for the problem of minimizing programs, this can be solved very easily. The program itself calls itself a very pretentious name - Trayconizer. By the way, I found a cool little article about what a “tray” is: Traybar - tray, treybar.

Sorry for the offtopic - couldn't resist. :)You can download the program here: http://www.whitsoftdev.com/trayconizer/. Since the program essentially does not have an interface, setting up its functionality is reduced to just a few mouse clicks. To be honest, its settings disappointed me a little. I'm not saying that the program doesn't suit me, but still I would redo a small bug in it. But more on that in order! Setting up the Trayconizer program

The program itself consists of only one executable file called Trayconizer.exe. If you want to run such a file, you won’t see anything remarkable except a message that actually says how to use it correctly.

The entire text of the message is written in English. You can see it in action for yourself by first launching it. It doesn’t seem to be difficult to write, so translating the text of the message won’t be difficult. If you strictly follow what is written there, then you will get exactly what we want to do - minimize any specific application to the tray area. To minimize a program, we need to configure its shortcut in “Start”, or in the “Quick Launch Panel”, or on the “Desktop”.1. Place the Trayconizer.exe launch file in any rarely visited directory (folder).

Why little visited? Probably so as not to accidentally delete it. 🙂 It would be best to place it in the Windows or Sytem32.2 folder. Open the properties of the shortcut for the future hidden program. Stop! You know what? Let's take a regular notepad as an example. It will be easier to navigate with a clear example. To do this, create a Notepad shortcut on the Desktop.

Next, right-click and select “Properties”. 3. In the "Object" field, add a kind of phrase consisting of the path of the Trayconizer.exe file. In my case, I placed the program in the “temp” folder on the “E:/” drive. As a result, the field text will look like: E:\temp\Trayconizer.exe “%SystemRoot%\system32\notepad.exe” Path to the Trayconizer program .exe may be different from mine, and therefore you will have to insert exactly the one that matches your location.4.

Ideally, do these manipulations with shortcuts in Start. After editing all the shortcuts you need, you can reproduce them by copying or moving. This way, after one adjustment, you can avoid making adjustments for each individual shortcut.

But these are small things...5. Now, if you want to minimize Notepad to tray, click the minimize button, which is standardly located at the top right next to the close button in the window of each program. Including Notepad.

At the beginning of the post, I said that this program has one small aesthetic drawback: after editing the shortcut, the program icon is replaced by the Trayconizer program icon. This of course doesn't really affect the speed.

But if there are two or more identical icons on the “Desktop”, this may introduce some inconveniences into the work. It will become visually difficult to distinguish program from program. To solve this problem, you can change the icon of the edited shortcut manually using its “Properties”.

I think this is enough for several of the most used applications. Although, maybe in the future I will look for something more rational, but for now I will be content with what I have... If you are interested in such a solution, write in the comments - I will know who I helped. Good luck and be careful with the files there!

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I didn’t want to clutter up my taskbar, and I like small application icons better than stripes on which you can’t really read anything anyway.

And if there are too many such windows open, then you definitely have to look for some display alternatives. I didn't search for long.

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One of the frequent procedures with the operation of Windows OS is minimizing windows. All windows and applications that we minimize appear on the Taskbar in the form of their shortcuts. But there is a program with which you can minimize applications not only to the Taskbar, but to .

This is good because “minimized” applications will not loom before your eyes, but will be hidden, as it were. Sometimes for some applications this is a necessary measure.

So, the program is in English and has a free version. It's called 4t Tray Minimizer Free.
You can download a program for minimizing games and programs to the tray from.

After a simple normal installation, the program will prompt you to set the settings. This is convenient; you won’t need to open the settings after installation, but do it immediately after installation. How to set it up and what their essence is will be described below.

1) The first window will offer to show hints every time you interact with the program. It is better to disable them so as not to interfere by checking the box next to the item Don`t show this page in the future:

2) Next, you can set whether the program will start at system boot () and whether the icon of the program itself should be shown in the tray. You can leave it as is:

3) Now comes the folding settings:

1 - Right mouse click minimizes to tray.
Assigning hot keys.
2 - Minimize the window to tray.
3 - Always minimize without showing the tray icon.
4 - Minimize all windows to tray.
Here you can also leave it as is, or customize it for yourself. If you leave it as is, then it is worth remembering that the hotkeys for minimizing to tray will be shift+esc.

4) The following settings suggest how minimized applications will be expanded.

The first 3 points mean:
- when you click on the icon once;
- when double-clicking (the first click will bring up the program’s context menu);
- by double click;
In the same window you can check the following boxes:
- Hot keys for calling the program itself. By default they are ctrl+alt+t, but you can assign your own.
- Hotkeys for displaying the context menu of the program itself (you need to check the box next to the item).
- Hotkeys for displaying the application recovery menu.

5) The next window shows how the program menu will look.
The program works in such a way that, in addition to minimizing using hotkeys, it also adds additional icons to each window, which are located at the top right next to the standard “minimize”, “restore previous view” and “close”.

You can check and uncheck the boxes next to the 4 items and change the location. You can remove them altogether and minimize them only using hotkeys, or you can leave only a checkmark opposite Minimize To Tray, then by clicking on it, the window will be minimized to tray.
The other 3 points mean: Minimize up/down, Pin window and Maximize to full screen. Unnecessary functions are just like extra ones.

6) This window repeats the same thing as the previous one, only this applies to the program’s context menu (with RMB on the icon).

Here you can also remove them or change their location.

7) The last window in which you need to add/remove exceptions:

This is in those cases when the program will not minimize some windows.
- Windows dialogs.
- Windows utilities.
- Something from the children, I still don’t understand.
- Window of the program itself.

That's all with the initial settings.
Additional interesting settings can help you hide the entire tray so that only the clock remains (Options - General - Hide The system tray) or group identical windows (for example, several open text files) (Options - Hiding - Group multiple ...).
You can find these and other settings by right-clicking on the icon and selecting Options. You just need knowledge of English.