Is it possible to rearrange icons on the taskbar with StartAllBack?

[sazkion]

Hopefully this is the right place to post this.

In the past I was using StartAllBack's taskbar tweaker in combination with Explorer Patcher and 7+ Taskbar Tweaker. 7+ Taskbar Tweaker had an option that let me rearrange the windows on my taskbar of the same program. For example, I could have 3 separate Chrome Windows (window A, B, and C) and I could right click and drag to move a window to a different position on the taskbar, so A, B, and C could be rearranged to B, A, and C.

It seems like a recent Windows update broke Explorer Patcher and 7+ Taskbar Tweaker and 7+ Taskbar Tweaker no longer works. I have since switched to Windhawk with the mod "Taskbar Thumbnail Reorder" but it doesn't work with StartAllBack's taskbar so I have to disable the enhanced classic taskbar in StartAllBack.

I really like having the taskbar tweaks that StartAllBack offers, but I like being able to rearrange my windows on the taskbar more. Is it possible to add this feature to StartAllBack?

Edited September 11 by sazkion

[Tihiy]

Rearrange your thumbnails by drag & drop.

[Dave-H]

@sazkion

Thread is now unlocked again.

[sazkion]

Thanks for the heads up, it looks like there is some confusion with what I'm requesting. I did take a video recording in order to clarify what I'm requesting and uploaded it to YouTube.

YouTube video

The video starts with the normal Windows behavior that does not allow me to rearrange different tabs of the same program on the taskbar.

I then turned on the mod from Windhawk and was then able to rearrange the tabs by hovering over the preview image and then dragging to the desired location. Unfortunately the Windhawk mod does not work when I have the StartAllBack enhanced taskbar enabled, so I was hoping it might be possible to add that feature to StartAllBack itself.

Thanks,

Edited September 11 by sazkion
Added further details

[George2005]

Well, if I understand @sazkion correctly he means that he isn't able to rearrange the different instances of the same application by moving the appropriate taskbar buttons or if he rearranges the different instances of the same application by dragging the thumbnail the appropriate taskbar button position doesn't follow the thumbnail position instantly.

Well I'm also very sad that 7+ Taskbar Tweaker is no longer working with SAB. For many many years I've used it to disable the grouping of the taskbar buttons of the same application so it allows me to drag the taskbar buttons freely and independently regardless the original group (e.g. multiple instances of Google Chrome) - please see picture (it's SAB 3.7.11 & 7+TT 5.15.2):

But now with SAB 3.8.+ it's no longer possible:

 

So I would like to ask, if it could be possible to implement ungrouping the Taskbar buttons of the same application's instances in SAB, and eg. add it as a new item in "Combine taskbar buttons" list box in "Tweak behavior and superpowers" section at Taskbar pane of SAB (such item could be labeled something like "Never and don't group" etc.).. Thank you very much.

[Tihiy]

22 hours ago, George2005 said:

So I would like to ask, if it could be possible to implement ungrouping the Taskbar buttons of the same application's instances in SAB, and eg. add it as a new item in "Combine taskbar buttons" list box in "Tweak behavior and superpowers" section at Taskbar pane of SAB (such item could be labeled something like "Never and don't group" etc.).. Thank you very much.

Now who's the target audience? Back in XP, tasks were not grouped but not rearrangeable either.

Why it's an important scenario? How do you organize your taskbar?

What about "Don't group pinned items" and other 7TT options? More bul***** checkboxes?

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040513-00/?p=39353

[George2005]

8 hours ago, Tihiy said:

Now who's the target audience? Back in XP, tasks were not grouped but not rearrangeable either.

Why it's an important scenario? How do you organize your taskbar?

What about "Don't group pinned items" and other 7TT options? More bul***** checkboxes?

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040513-00/?p=39353

Well, I understand that some people don't need such features at all. You have asked me why it's an important scenario and how I organize my taskbar. I often work with multiple instances of same application (not only web browsers, but e.g. MS Word documents as well as Powershell/terminal consoles etc.) and ungrouping the items helps me organise the work in logical way (e.g. keep project description in Word document just next the web browser with appropriate sources for this project and just next the Powershell console to work on this project etc.). Well if someone has 3 - 4 - 5 active buttons on taskbar it's no problem but if I have 42 taskbar buttons in two rows (as I've just counted it) its organization based on ungrouped items is very helpful.

[sazkion]

I'm just asking if it's possible to add the feature or not. If it's not, I'll keep using my current workaround while leaving the enhanced taskbar disabled in SAB. 

I understand most people don't need or care about the feature, but for me it's helpful being able to organize windows on your taskbar if you have more than one window for a program open which is why I'm asking if it's possible. 

I must have been doing something wrong on my end. I just watched a video from Tihiy that showed that this request was already working just fine on their system, and when I tried it again it worked for me. I apologize for the confusion on my end and wanted to thank Tihiy for their patience. 

Edited September 14 by sazkion

[tistou77]

17 hours ago, George2005 said:

Well, I understand that some people don't need such features at all. You have asked me why it's an important scenario and how I organize my taskbar. I often work with multiple instances of same application (not only web browsers, but e.g. MS Word documents as well as Powershell/terminal consoles etc.) and ungrouping the items helps me organise the work in logical way (e.g. keep project description in Word document just next the web browser with appropriate sources for this project and just next the Powershell console to work on this project etc.). Well if someone has 3 - 4 - 5 active buttons on taskbar it's no problem but if I have 42 taskbar buttons in two rows (as I've just counted it) its organization based on ungrouped items is very helpful.

This is the advantage of having options in the software used, everyone uses with their needs / desires, because not everyone has the same

We saw ourselves using options (in other software) that we didn't even think about before seeing it
Afterwards, it's true that "working" (helping) with certain devs, helps to have this or that feature in addition 

Edited September 14 by tistou77

[George2005]

5 hours ago, tistou77 said:

This is the advantage of having options in the software used, everyone uses with their needs / desires, because not everyone has the same

We saw ourselves using options (in other software) that we didn't even think about before seeing it
Afterwards, it's true that "working" (helping) with certain devs, helps to have this or that feature in addition 

You are right, definitely! But I understand that @Tihiy couldn't see the target audience for such feature as many people ask him for implement and/or fix many other features.

So I'm willing to provide some donation to him to implement ungrouping the taskbar buttons of the same application but I don't have a clue how much it should be ...

[ninjakivi2]

+1 for this feature. Recently I have updated Start is back, and it looks like the latest version is incompatible with 7+ taskbar tweaker, so I'm looking for a way to revert to older version so I can ungroup icons on my taskbar again. I also installed Windhawk, but it seems incompatible with start all back as well. Note that the feature to ungroup taskbar icons is the 6th most popular mod on that platform:

 

To expand as to why this feature is needed:

It's quite simple. Let's say I'm working on something, and have 7 tabs open. Now, I get a call that someone needs something from me, and I need to open explorer to fetch and image and paint to maybe change image format. When I open said program windows, I want to ensure they open to the right of all my task list, so I can quickly recognize where they are, to quickly close them afterwards, and be able to navigate between them. I cannot do that if I already had explorer or paint opened before; these tasks would open in arbitrary places on my taskbar and I don't like that.

I have been using 7+taskbar tweaker for about 10 years now as it provided me with necessary features, but now that it's incompatible with start is back I'm quite upset. The perfect solution would be if start all back provided me with that one single feature that is missing so I don't have to rely on more tools to do the job.

[ninjakivi2]

On 9/13/2024 at 12:29 PM, Tihiy said:

Now who's the target audience? Back in XP, tasks were not grouped but not rearrangeable either.

Why it's an important scenario? How do you organize your taskbar?

What about "Don't group pinned items" and other 7TT options? More bul***** checkboxes?

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040513-00/?p=39353

To clear some confusion, I gave a nice example of how I'm using my taskbar efficiently above. However, I noticed the blogpost that you linked, and in the video that @sazkion posted there are discussions of dynamic grouping or regrouping; not really what I or the OP are asking for here. What I personally want is literally a single checkbox just like in 7+taskbar tweaker to permanently ungroup all task windows from each other on my taskbar, just like shown on OP's latest screenshot. Like said before, this ensures that every window I open has its taskbar task to the right of every other task, and that in case I'm working on let's say 3 different issues at the same time I can keep all windows relevant ot the issue next to each other, that's how I roll.

 

[Tihiy]

Here's test version without grouping:

https://startisback.com/StartAllBack_setup.exe

[ninjakivi2]

1 hour ago, Tihiy said:

Here's test version without grouping:

https://startisback.com/StartAllBack_setup.exe

Ah, took me a while to find that the option has a checkbox now; I'm too used to set this to 'never group' hah.

First, thank you very much for that; I finally gotten rid of windhawk and 7+ tweaker for good now and I don't need to worry they will break eventually.

Now, while all works great, I have a slight issue with pinned items. Clicking a pinned program will just open a new group and not hide the pinned icon, while, unpinning the program and pinning it again gets rid of the icon, at least temporarily.

I would like to kindly ask for implementation where if at least one task window is opened the taskbar icon is hidden.

[Tihiy]

2 hours ago, ninjakivi2 said:

I would like to kindly ask for implementation where if at least one task window is opened the taskbar icon is hidden.

That would be 'partially grouping' then. What should happen then if you have two instances and close first one? Would one that left move to combine with pinned one? One pinned one unpinned as is? Move pinned position into new instance?

Where should second instance launch? Alongside first one or at the end?

Edited 15 hours ago by Tihiy