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Sunday 8 February 2009

Make any window stay on top

Some applications have an option to make their windows stay visible even when you select another application. While using my webcam on Skype the other day I went searching for the option to make the webcam window stay on top but I could not find it anywhere. There are a number of free tools available to apply this feature to all windows, but I settled on Tummy's Power Menu 1.5.1.

Not only does Power Menu add the 'stay on top' option to all windows, but also it allows you to set the transparency of the window to make it see-through. This software also enables you to minimise an application to the Systray (the collection of icons near the clock on the Taskbar). Power Menu even lets you adjust an application's priority within windows, although I do not recommend setting this unless you are confident that you know what you are doing.

Power Menu works on all modern versions of Windows including XP and Vista. Once you have installed the software you can access the new features by pulling down the control menu of a window by clicking on its icon at the right hand of the title bar. The following images demonstrate Power Menu's excellent features:-

The extra features on the control menu.

A semi-transparent Notepad.

Firefox minimised to the Tray. Click on the icon to restore it.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

thanx for shring
looking forward to try it

Anonymous said...

OMG, this is GREAT!!! I am going to use this to keep the NHL.com box score ticker on top of my powerpoint while I am in class! No more Alt-Tab for me!!

Great find!

TheStepster said...

hallo there. u followed me on twitter =) thanks for sharing this blog. (following you back =) )

Borkiman said...

Thanks for the comments, everybody.

Anonymous said...

thank you for sharing such an useful application. I will have a try on it

Anonymous said...

This is elegant :) Thanks for sharing with us.

Borkiman said...

PTO: Let me know how you get on with it.

Hicham: My pleasure.

Thanks for the comments.

CsCentz said...

For that semitransparent notepad effect, you can also try StNotepad: http://stforms.net/StNotepad.html

This one makes only the background semitransparent while the controls and text on program remain opaque. Very useful at times to type image text from behind, instead of placing the image and notepad side by side.

Borkiman said...

cc: Thanks for the tip. I will check it out.

ignatius said...

Thanks CsCentz, I liked StNotepad very much. Watch its video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmC7eKFg8-o

Pete said...

I was looking for a notepad with Multitouch feature, to edit text in tablet mode on muli-touch tablet PC. I found that StNotepad 2 got this feature with very common and useful getures. Now I can edit text only with fingers no need of keyboard, mouse and stylus also. Thanks CsCentz

Borkiman said...

Blimey. This is almost like a community here. ;)