Windows
Spice up your Taskbar
The Windows 10 taskbar may not be the most exciting thing in the world, but you can give it a healthy dose of visual flair with the help of TaskbarX, an app that makes it easy to center your taskbar icons – and a whole lot more. It works particularly well if you want to have a cleaner, more understated look for your taskbar. Centering your icons with TaskbarX gives a more modern look than the default Windows taskbar appearance, especially if you only have a couple of pinned icons.
You can take things further with some of TaskbarX’s built-in options. For example, you can make your taskbar entirely transparent, making your icons appear to be floating against your wallpaper. You can change how your icons animate into position when you open a new app. And it works well if your setup involves multiple monitors, with lots of extra options to customise it exactly how you want. We will take you through the process of giving your taskbar some much-needed love and attention with this handy little program.
Get started
TaskbarX comes in two flavors: A free version hosted on the developer’s website, and a version on the Microsoft Store that carries a small fee. Both of these versions are functionally the same, however.
Head to chrisandriessen.nl/ taskbarx and click “Download Zip,” then extract the zip archive to your chosen location. TaskbarX is a portable app and does not have an installer, so double-click the TaskbarX.exe file to run it – you will notice that any icons pinned to your taskbar have now become centered. By default, TaskbarX will now run every time you load your PC. If you want to adjust any of TaskbarX’s settings, you need to launch the TaskbarX Configurator. exe file located in the same folder.
Express your style
Once you have opened TaskbarX Configurator, you will see several tabs on the left-hand side of the app, starting with “Style.” This lets you choose what visual appearance your taskbar will have. The first selection is “Default” – this keeps the taskbar opacity the same as if you were not using TaskbarX.
“Transparent” makes your taskbar entirely transparent. “Blur” adds a heavy blur to your wallpaper behind the taskbar while maintaining low opacity. “Acrylic,” meanwhile, attempts to replicate the trappings of Microsoft’s Fluent Design System. The result is similar to Blur’s clouded taskbar, but it opts for a higher opacity level, meaning the edge of the taskbar is easier to see.
After choosing, click “Apply” to make the changes.
Animation effects
Next, click “Animation” in the left-hand toolbar. Whenever you open a new app (and its icon appears on the taskbar), TaskbarX will re-center the taskbar icons to take it into account. The app gives you a vast number of options when deciding what sort of animation to use – there are over 30 animations to choose from [Image A]. To see one in action, select it, then click “Apply;” TaskbarX will refresh, and your taskbar icons will re-center themselves using the chosen animation. Alternatively, open a
new app to see its icon appear in the taskbar using your chosen animation effect.
You can select a different animation (or none at all) if your PC is running on battery power as opposed to being plugged in. This is useful if you want to save on tasks that might add extra load to your processor (such as animations) and eat into your battery life.
Finally, you can also change the animation speed in milliseconds. Some animations run very quickly at the default 100ms, so increasing this number can be a way to see the animation in more detail.
Take up a position
With TaskbarX running, your taskbar icons will be centered. You can make some slight adjustments to this, but there is no “left-align” or “right-align” option in the Configurator app. So, what do you do if you want to achieve a similar effect? Well, you can offset your icons. If you want to right-align your icons, enter a large number in the “Primary Taskbar Offset” window. The required number will depend on your monitor’s resolution: On a 1440p display, for example, around 800px is enough to right-align the icons [Image B]. To left-align the icons, on the other hand, just enter a negative number, such as -500.
When determining how to center your taskbar icons, TaskbarX measures the distance between the left-hand edge and right-hand edge of your display. However, this does not consider the Windows search box on the left and the notification area on the right, and you may feel that your icons look off-center because of this. To take these into account, tick the “Compensate Tray Clock” checkbox and click “Apply.” The center of your display will now be calculated using the right-most edge of the search box and the left-most edge of the notification area.
Taskschedule
When you first log in to Windows 10, a lot of processes start up at once. If you are concerned that TaskbarX could conflict with some of these, or load prematurely – for example, before Windows Explorer has loaded the taskbar – you can delay it from launching immediately using the “Taskschedule” tab.
This is set to use a three-second delay by default [Image C]. You can increase this if you like, or remove it entirely if you think there are unlikely to be any issues with it running straight away. We recommend you leave it at three seconds, though, just to be safe.
Extra options
There is much more that TaskbarX can do, with plenty of additional settings that can be found in the “Extra” tab. For instance, if you have added toolbars to your taskbar – such as showing addresses or links – then the “Update Taskbar Toolbars” option will reposition your icons accordingly. If you are using multiple monitors, you can also choose whether the taskbar is centered only on your main monitor or only on your secondary monitor.
Further down in the “Extra” tab you can find a few more options. TaskbarX refreshes regularly to detect changes (such as when you add a toolbar), and this refresh rate is set to 400ms. You can adjust this – lowering the number will result in TaskbarX updating more quickly but adds a bit more load to your processor. You can set different refresh times depending on whether you are using battery power, too.
And finally, you can also tell TaskbarX to stop centering your icons and to put them back on the left-hand side if your monitor’s resolution width is set to a certain number.