HideIt

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Introduction

Sometimes I find I want to hide an application that is running in the background to stop me closing it, and to stop it appearing on the task list. How many times have you started a lengthy download, left it running in the background, and then closed the application accidentally while 'cleaning up' your desktop? This utility allows you to hide, and unhide any 'top level' windows (that is, any windows whose parent is the desktop).

On running the utility, an icon will appear in your taskbar. Clicking or right-clicking on it will produce a menu, similar to the following:

This menu has two submenus that will list all of your top-level windows. Any window that is visible will be shown on the 'Hide Window' menu, while any window that is hidden will appear on the 'Show Window' menu. Clicking on a window name in either menu will toggle its visible state.

Normally the Windows system uses many hidden windows for such purposes as DDE message exchange etc. To avoid windows being listed in either of the lists you can add them to an 'exclusion' list. Double-clicking on the taskbar icon, or clicking and then clicking options, will open a dialog with a picker list allowing you to add or remove windows from the exclusion list. This list is then saved to your profile and used each time you run the utility. To exit the utility, click on Exit on the menu. That's all there is to it - have fun!

History

• Version 1 - 19 Feb 2003

• First version