AppSwitcherBar

AppSwitcherBar provides the application bar complementary to Windows 11 Taskbar with ungrouped application windows buttons for easy one-click application switching.

I did not use any invasive techniques that replace the Win11 task bar as I use Win11 for my day-job and didn't want to potentially jeopardize the system stability. AppSwitcherBar is not a substitute for Win11 task bar, but it's a complement that can "sit on top of the taskbar" and provide the ungrouped buttons with the possibility to quickly switch between the application by single mouse click.

Note: It's built as NET6 WPF application, but as it heavily uses the Win32 API, it's bound to Windows OS by design (tested on Windows 11 and Windows 10).

Quick Start

To start AppSwitcherBar, just run AppSwitcherBar.exe.

Main features

• Top level application windows are presented as buttons within the bar
• Applications pinned to task bar without any window open are presented as transparent background buttons with title in italics. Click on the button to launch the pinned application.
• The buttons for windows of the same applications are displayed together but there is always a button for each top level window (this is called grouping here)
• Optionally, it's possible to hide the applications (buttons) having only single window (use HideSingleWindowApps setting). When the pinned applications support is on and the application has a pin, it will be not be hiden even having a single window.
• Click on the application window button to switch to application or to minimize the window of foreground application
• When a file is dragged over the application window button, the application windows is activated, so the file can easily be droppped there
• Hover the mouse over the application window button to show the live thumbnail of the window
  • Click on the thumbnail to switch to application or to minimize the window of foreground application
  • Use the close icon at the thumbnail to close the window.
• Drag and drop (using mouse and left button) the application window buttons to reorder them. You can reorder the same application windows ("within group") or the whole applications ("groups")
• Right click on the application window button for the context menu with possibility to close the window, start a new application instance or launch the (recent) item or task from JumpList.
• Click on the hamburger icon to show the menu (the search panel is open by default)

Menu

• Click on the desktop icon to toggle the desktop
• Click on the search icon and search for the text in window caption and name of pinned or installed application.
  • Click on the item in the search result to switch to window or launch the app.
  • Press ESC key to clear the search text. When the search text is empty, it will close the search
  • Press Enter key to "execute" the search result shown in bold. Up, Down, PgUp, PgDn keys will move the selection
  • Use w: prefix to search in windows only and a: prefix to search the applications only
• Click on the pin icon to show the list of applications pinned to Windows Start and launch them
• Click on the applications icon to show the list of applications (and documents) available in the Windows Start menu
  • Click on the item in the list to lauch the application or document
  • Click on the folder item to expand/collapse the folder
  • Use the letter key (A-Z) on the keyboard to quickly move within the list if any item starting with such letter exists
• Click on the theme icon to toggle between light and dark theme
• Click on the gear icon to show the application settings.
  • Set the docking edge (top, bottom, left, right)
  • Choose the monitor where to display the AppSwitcherBar
  • Enable/disable bar and application window button auto-size
  • Enable/disable starting the AppSwitcherBar on Windows start
  • Refresh the list of installed applications and applications pinned to Windows Taskbar and Start
• Click on the power icon to close the AppSwitcherBar.
• Use the icon at the top to show/hide the button labels
• To close menu
  • Click again on the hamburger icon at the main window or
  • Use the icon with arrow down in the menu or
  • Press Ecs key when in search and there is no text to search for (or press Ecs twice - first to clear the search text)

Additional panels

• Hover over the clock to see the time in addtional time zones if defined in settings
• The mike and speaker icons indicates whether the default audio device is muted or not, the small accented icon also indicates that the audio device is in use by any application (for example - some application is capturing the mike)
• Click on the mike or speaker icon to toggle mute of the device
• Use the mouse wheel over mike or speaker icon to adjust volume of the device
• Right click on the mike or speaker icon to show the information about all audio devices (capture on mike icon and render on speaker icon).
  • Click on the device panel to set the default audio device.
  • Use the mouse wheel to adjust volume of the device
  • Use the click on mike or speaker icon to toggle mute of the device

Features

AppSwitcherBar will create the application bar (window) and dock it to the edge of monitor as configured in application settings (bottom edge is the default). When there is a Windows Taskbar at the same edge, the application bar is placed "besides" towards the screen content. The application bar behaves similar way like the Taskbar - it will reduce the area for the other applications so they will not overlap even when maximized.

As mentioned above, the idea is not to use any invasive techniques. It's possible to get a good result when combining the AppSwitcherBar with auto-hide functionality of standard Windows Taskbar. In such case the AppSwitcherBar seems to be "main bar", although it's possible to simply get the Windows Taskbar by moving the mouse "over the outer edge".

AppSwitcherBar periodically enumerates the available application windows and presents them as buttons in the bar. The current active (foreground) application window has the highlighted button. The button contains icon (if it can be retrieved) and the window title. The title can be cropped to fit the button size, the full title is available in tool-tip when hovering the mouse over the button.

Click to window button to make it active (foreground). Clicking to the button of the active application window makes such window minimized. When a file is dragged over the application window button, the application windows is also activated, allowing the easy drop of the file to the window.

The windows of the "same" applications don't group into single button (well, that's why I built the app), however the AppSwitchBar puts the application windows belonging to the same process together (that's what "grouping" is in context of AppSwitchBar).

Hovering over the button pops up the live thumbnail of the application window. Also the full window title is available in tool-tip when hovering the mouse over the button (the title within the button can be cropped to fit the button size). Click to thumbnail to switch to application window or minimize the window if it's foreground one. Use the close icon overlay to close the application window. When the feature flag EnableContextMenuOnThumbnail is set, the right click on the thumbnail shows the system context menu of the window the thumbnail belongs to.

AppSwitcherBar shows also the buttons of the applications pinned to the task bar as transparent buttons with italics caption ("pins") when there is no window open for the application. The pin button doesn't have the thumbnail and click to the button launches the application. Note: The functionality uses undocumented Windows interface IPinnedList3, so it might not be stable. Use the setting ShowPinnedApps to switch it off in case of issues.

Application window or pin buttons can be reordered using mouse drag and drop. Drag the source button and drop it to the target button. When dragging over the buttons, the cursor will signal where the source will be placed if droped here. When dragging to the left/top, the source will be placed before the target. When dragging to right/bottom, the source will be placed after the target. When the source and target window buttons belongs to the same application, only the single window button will be moved to the new position ("within the group"). The source button is in light blue color, the target in dark gray.

When the source and target window buttons belongs to different applications, all (source) application window buttons will be moved to the new position. The source group is in light blue color, the target one in dark gray.

Right mouse button click on the button representing a window, opens the context menu allowing to start a new instance of application or close the window. Cancel menu item just closes the menu without any action or you can simply click anywhere outside the menu.

When the JumpList feature flag is set (true by default) and the application provides JumpList, its items are also added to the context menu and can be used to launch the documents or tasks as defined by the application.