Beginner Builder series 75% done! will probably never be finished. :(

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

WinRoll: They see me rolling...


WinRoll is a very function filled utility to manage windows in a very easy way. It is probably my favorite (what I like to call) window management tool I've yet to come across. It runs in your tray silently until you call upon one of its functions:

-Always on top/Send to buttom: You can make any window always on top by just middle clicking (or Shift+Right clicking) it's close button. Likewise, if you right click the close button, it will send that window to the back.

-Transparency: Change the transparency of windows but just Middle Clicking (or Shift+Right Clicking) on the title bar. But unlike programs like Glass2k, you can only choose a universal transparency percentage, not a different transparency for every window.

-Rrrrrroll!: I'm fairely sure that this is unique to WinRoll, but you can make windows "roll up" into their title bar. At first, you might be thinking, "Ok, when would I need that?", but imagine having 20+ windows open. Instead of having to keep going back to the taskbar to minimize/unminimize, you can just roll, go to the next window, roll, go to the next, etc. Not to mention the fact that it quickly hides a window that has been placed Always on top without having to minimize it.

-Minimize to tray: A very nice feature. Middle Click/Shift+Right Click a minimize button and you can have it minimize to the tray. But one of the VERY nice features that other Min2Tray programs might not have is the ability to minimize either (a) as it's own icon, or (b) in the WinRoll menu. The menu means that you can right click the WinRoll icon, and it will show a list of all the minimized windows. Really nice feature, if your tray is already cluttered, but you want to minimize something there.

-Apply to all: A very handy feature is that all three features I mentioned above can be applied to all open windows at once. Just press Alt+[Whatever mouse button applies to that function]. You can even use this for regular tasks, like closing or minimizing.

-On/Off: If you ever want to stop using WinRoll, you don't have to quit. Just double click the tray icon (or uncheck the "Enable" option in the tray menu) and WinRoll will essentially "Turn Off" meaning that it will unminimize all windows in the tray, turn off all transparencies, and turn off all always-on-tops. Then you can just turn it back on and start using it again. Keep in mind, though, that when WinRoll is turned back on, it will not restore all previous transparencies, always-on-tops, etc. It just makes sense: what if you kept WinRoll off for hours and the same programs weren't still open?


-Fast and LITE: WinRoll was written in assembly language, which makes it very fast, and very light. All that is needed is a DLL and the program itself, which combine to form only 24kb! In addition, it runs at 300kb of RAM. If that's not lite, I don't know what is.


The only -let me stress, only- flaw I find with WinRoll is that it does not work with all windows, like iTunes, for example. Because iTunes doesn't have a "title bar", it's unaffected. That's what makes programs that use hotkeys like AlwaysOnTopMaker nice.

Other than that, it's amazing. It's open source, which is very good, and it is portable.

Visit WinRoll website for download

2 comments:

  1. One of the things I like most is the 'Apply to all windows' key shortcut. In particular for setting global transparency... In fact, I'd wish there was an option to auto set a new window to it.

    WinRoll works as expected the majority of times, and is indeed fast and lite for most tasks; except transparency. When it is enabled, common window's tasks; such as moving; turn to a crawl. Also it does not work well on WMP.

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  2. Winrol was a very amazing feature. But now a days I cant see it in modern PC. Now it's time to avail Social Media Management Services for more information.

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