How to pin to Taskbar various scripts under just one icon?

Off-topic posts of interest to the "Everything" community.
Post Reply
Thy Grand Voidinesss
Posts: 606
Joined: Wed Jun 01, 2022 5:01 pm

How to pin to Taskbar various scripts under just one icon?

Post by Thy Grand Voidinesss »

[I have already posted this question on forum of AutoHotkey, but got no answers there: https://www.autohotkey.com/boards/viewt ... 2&t=115329]

How can I pin under just 1 and the same icon some kind of multiple shortcuts to e.g. BAT files [which will contain already correctly working Registry hack that I have]?


I need to create a sub-menu for my already pinned Magnifier, which entries will load to it [during its opening] different settings in a quick / convenient way. But it seems that I cannot trick my Windows 10 by:

● pinning to this EXE a BAT or AHK [otherwise working] file - because when clicked it will be ignored and simply
magnify.exe
will run with the last used settings

● pinning to this EXE an LNK leading to BAT or AHK [otherwise working] file

● renaming BAT to something like BAT2 and associating it with
magnify.exe
- because Windows 10 will not allow for such associating, saying "The program you have selected cannot be associated with this file type"

● changing the Target of a sub-menu entry - because it is available only for LNK files which when pinned under 1 icon are not pinned as
file.lnk
but e.g.
file.bat
or
file.ahk


● using command lines of the free NirCmd by NirSoft - because the arguments are ignored and what happens is opening of
nircmd.exe
window which only displays info about this third party program

● compiling BAT [containing Registry hack] to EXE and trying for it the above methods


To sum up: it seems that it was not intended by Microsoft for a user to be able to pin to already pinned to Taskbar program anything other than legit file formats already associated with a given program; and especially to not be able to pin an EXE file format, as it can only by put on Taskbar as a separate icon and only once
Thy Grand Voidinesss
Posts: 606
Joined: Wed Jun 01, 2022 5:01 pm

Re: How to pin to Taskbar various scripts under just one icon?

Post by Thy Grand Voidinesss »

Does anyone have any thoughts about this?
therube
Posts: 4610
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 6:48 pm

Re: How to pin to Taskbar various scripts under just one icon?

Post by therube »

Not quite sure what you're after?
How about screenshots showing/describing?

renaming BAT to something like BAT2
BAT to CMD ?


So a pinned item goes to a place like:
E:\Users\RUBEN7\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar\Steven-LITE.lnk

(I hope I can unpin it.)

But aside from placing a link there, it must also set up an association in the Windows Registry.
Looks like it goes here, but what its' data means, I have no clue:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Explorer > Taskband



Where is the list of pinned start menu and taskbar items stored in Windows 7
therube
Posts: 4610
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 6:48 pm

Re: How to pin to Taskbar various scripts under just one icon?

Post by therube »

Instead of pinning "programs" to the Taskbar, how about pinning a program launcher to the Taskbar, & from that launcher you have your wanted programs, in sub-menus or whatnot?
horst.epp
Posts: 1345
Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2014 3:24 pm

Re: How to pin to Taskbar various scripts under just one icon?

Post by horst.epp »

therube wrote: Tue Nov 07, 2023 6:30 pm Instead of pinning "programs" to the Taskbar, how about pinning a program launcher to the Taskbar, & from that launcher you have your wanted programs, in sub-menus or whatnot?
That's what I do with QAP (QuickAccessPopUp)
This even allows hotkeys for any of the configured apps or files.
Thy Grand Voidinesss
Posts: 606
Joined: Wed Jun 01, 2022 5:01 pm

Re: How to pin to Taskbar various scripts under just one icon?

Post by Thy Grand Voidinesss »

therube wrote: Tue Nov 07, 2023 6:17 pm Not quite sure what you're after?
How about screenshots showing/describing?
[...]
I have Winamp pinned to Taskbar. I can left click its icon and have it opened. But I can also right click it in order to reveal its shell menu from which I can select also pinned e.g. M3UH playlist and FLAC audio files. Thus I wish I could left click Magnifier pinned to Taskbar to just open it- and right click it to run whatever script files [with code that would first change Magnifier's settings and then also run it]

therube wrote: Tue Nov 07, 2023 6:30 pm Instead of pinning "programs" to the Taskbar, how about pinning a program launcher to the Taskbar, & from that launcher you have your wanted programs, in sub-menus or whatnot?
That is something for me to consider. If I can have its icon on the Taskbar and with just one click get access to a list of script files that would just launch EXE or change its settings and then run it- then the only downside would be being forced to always have to click than launcher's icon in order to even simply run EXE of e.g. Magnifier

Although a second downside would be that with 2-3 programs that could work for me. But lets say 5 programs, each with 3-5 scripts would create either a long list or a need to create sub-menus - and thus making this not so neat solution. I could of course use some other launcher or another portable version of the same but that would lead to unwanted complexity / chaos
NotNull
Posts: 5260
Joined: Wed May 24, 2017 9:22 pm

Re: How to pin to Taskbar various scripts under just one icon?

Post by NotNull »

Personally, I would create a simple AHK script that does nothing but starting magnifier.

In that same AHK script, you can add entries to the JumpList ("the right-click menu" [1]
(search the AHK forum; just checked: there are several threads that cover how to do this).

Pin the resulting script to the taskbar.

So now you end up with an application that on double-click starts magnifier and on right-click shows the Jumplist entries you added. Selecting one of those will execute the tasks you linked to that entry.


[1] Example: Firefox. It has added Tasks to the Jumplist (like open new tab, open new window)
Post Reply