Get On Up!

Okay, there's a lot of apps out there that will give you 'always on top' functionality for windows.

Most of them hardly rate, for a few reasons. Either they're time-limited-trials, or they include nag screens.

A lot of them work by adding extra buttons to the top right of every window. This is clever, but is overkill *big time*. (Screenshot of 'Actual Title Bars' trial apps, from 'Actual Tools'. (This tool lets you specify different buttons for every app on your system. Really impressive stuff, but too much hard work this little geek)

My favourite tool in this arena is also the simplest.

'OnTop.Exe' from 'PlanetScott'.

Rather than clutter up a window with extra buttons, it adds an item to the context menu (right click on the title bar, and you'll see an 'Always on top' option). This is less intrusive than the others, and a pretty decent solution.

It's four years old (100 in internet years), but still popular because of its simple approach.

'Will' on Wed, 01 Mar 2006 23:36:21 GMT, sez:

Interesting, but the nVidia drivers already do that for me (on my laptop).

Though, a few more steps.

I just select the "nView Options" menu, and another menu flies open and I just select "Always on top".

'lb' on Wed, 01 Mar 2006 23:52:16 GMT, sez:

hi will! hope you're goin well.

always on top is like the cheapskate's alternative to having multiple monitors.

i've got batch files for launching always on top versions of applications:

i hit [Start]-Q, nt [enter]

and slick run will launch a batch file (nt.bat) that uses something called CMDOW to run notepad in always on top mode.

something else i've been playing with is the windows scheduler. i didn't notice when they put that thing in... it's pretty handy.

'Homer Simpson' on Thu, 02 Mar 2006 06:41:07 GMT, sez:

PowerMenu does exactly the same thing. It also has the ability to set the transparency % of any window and to set the priority of the associated process. Don't leave home without it.

http://www.veridicus.com/tummy/programming/powermenu/

'Omer van Kloeten' on Thu, 02 Mar 2006 07:43:30 GMT, sez:

I hate it when an option is added to the end of the list, because I'm used to the fact that Close is last :)

'Itai' on Thu, 02 Mar 2006 07:51:42 GMT, sez:

I simply fail to see the usefulness of the "always on top" feature. When I'm using an app, it's currently on top. When I need another app, I don't want the first one to cover a part of it. When you need it, it's on top. When you don't, you don't!

'lb' on Thu, 02 Mar 2006 10:52:24 GMT, sez:

good point omer.

thanks homer: powermenu was good -- even better was litepadfix from the same developer!

regarding: 'usefulness of the "always on top" feature':
i'm glad it's not a standard part of windows, but for some little apps it's handy. particularly calc.exe, notepad.exe and mspaint.exe.

sometimes too, i'll pin a pinging command window in front while i change network things in a window underneath.

'Cybercrawler' on Thu, 01 Mar 2007 13:04:02 GMT, sez:

Nice work folks....!

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