Saturday, October 07, 2006

Day 22 - Jedi Window Dock

Tonights application allows you to dock any number of applications inside of a tabbed window.

You can dock all your putty sessions together, put all of your instant message conversations on tabs, or perhaps you manage a ton of remote desktop sessions... All of these windows need not take up space on your taskbar any longer! Software Jedi to the rescue.

Any application, with the exception of console apps, can be docked. Some strange behavior has been reported with a couple of apps but it works fine for most.
After docking, you can right click the active tab and close the application - or undock it, which pops it out of the tabbed frame.

This app goes into my top 5 list for sure! For the new visitors, be sure to download the .NET Framework 2.0 first. Most of my applications require it!

Digg! Download the app here
 Download the source here

Modded version (credit to DaemonCollector and dharh):
Fixed some huge bugs(not restoring window on popout and some smaller ones) added drag and drop tab control and added the ability to change the tab alignment
Also added some functions to the WinAPI thing in the utils librarary to make these work.

39 Comments:

At 4:02 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's called using the Windows feature to group similiar windows. This is your most retarded app yet.

 
At 5:33 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

i love this app and the group similiar is so not the same this is much better but is there a way to change the title bar i mean to like ims and so on in a setting i cant code but i would think it would be a simple add but i couldent do it if i tryed i done have any way to compile

 
At 7:17 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is so very cool
Thanks

 
At 8:01 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nice.
Doesn't re-focus the window if you select any part of it, need to select the title bar.

 
At 8:56 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Really cool! :) It would be great with the possibility to put the tab bar in the bottom of the window.

 
At 9:45 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This thing is really awesome Jedi :) Too bas I couldn't make it to the chat last night.
-atomicSpatule

 
At 9:55 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

really good. All it needs now is a close button, so you don't have to do it using right click.

 
At 10:46 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

is any of the source for your apps available through krugle?

 
At 1:56 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

Very cool app. I just wanted to know, for this post, I saved it in Google Notebook so the direct links and everything were copied. After you finish the 30 apps in 30 days, are you going to remove the links from this blog and kill the links, or will they remain just the way they are (will they remain working)?

 
At 6:59 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes, a close button or close on middle click a la firefox would be cool.

 
At 10:01 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

if i choose to popout an app, the title bar is gone. anyone else experiencing this?

 
At 11:06 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Weird doesnt work at all for me, just closes as soon as I click add to tab :-(

 
At 3:52 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hello!

There is a similar utility for console apps:
http://www.jpsoft.com/tcides.htm
(TCI = Tabbed Console Interface)

Cheers, Roman

 
At 12:51 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I added a tab, clicked on it, and got "Error: attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt."

This was using a release build of the modded version.

 
At 12:54 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

When I built in debug, and ran from the debugger, no issues occurred.
Running outside the debugger causes the same issues.

build warnings:
C:\src\anappaday\JediWindowDockMod\AnAppADay.JediWindowDock.WinApp\MainForm.cs(52,17): warning CS1690: Accessing a member on 'AnAppADay.JediWindowDock.WinApp.AppWrapperControl._info' may cause a runtime exception because it is a field of a marshal-by-reference class
c:\src\anappaday\JediWindowDockMod\AnAppADay.Utils\bin\Debug\AnAppADay.Utils.dll: (Related file)
C:\src\anappaday\JediWindowDockMod\AnAppADay.JediWindowDock.WinApp\MainForm.cs(53,49): warning CS0197: Passing 'AnAppADay.JediWindowDock.WinApp.AppWrapperControl._info' as ref or out or taking its address may cause a runtime exception because it is a field of a marshal-by-reference class
c:\src\anappaday\JediWindowDockMod\AnAppADay.Utils\bin\Debug\AnAppADay.Utils.dll: (Related file)

 
At 2:46 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Fixing it right now...I think I know what the issue is.

 
At 3:27 PM, Blogger bourgon said...

Wow. Very cool app. Where the heck is my paypal account info? This will really help me clean up my desktop. Coolest app so far, Dana!

 
At 3:39 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Fixed the memory access problems, required a couple of changes. I have sent the new version to Dana, hopfully he'll update it soon.

 
At 11:36 AM, Blogger bourgon said...

DaemonCollector, newbie question - how do I run your version? I see all the source code, but the only app I see is in the Debug folder, so naturally I'm hesitant to run it.

 
At 12:40 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This application is excellent, and very useful. I am constantly running 10 or 12 things, and it is very nice to be able to group these utility application together all in one.

 
At 3:39 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

thanks jedi :)
now openoffice is on tabbed interface because of your program :)

that was my request before u started your quest...

though i would love it more without .NET 2.0 coz i have .NET 1.1 for other program too...dang :p

 
At 6:19 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have another mod of this available. The mod is based off of DaemonCollector's, but it includes the ability to turn the dock into a tray icon when minimized. You can add and remove programs to the tray icon by selecting them from the menu. There's also a few other minor improvements.

Download the Mod

 
At 3:24 AM, Blogger App said...

This is great! (as long as you don't tab a tabbed window. It doesn't play well with other mdi applications. not redrawing properly)

 
At 5:57 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

it does't play well with NotePad++ and YM too, can't type a word in tabbed NotePad++ or once tabbled YM

 
At 6:09 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi, Blueshift...

the mod link u gave has a broken zip file... even that i download it from your website

please fix it

 
At 3:13 AM, Blogger david said...

As I use the same programs over and over (x infinity) do you think a save function that could save those windows and launch them when needed? I will be using this everyday now. I love it!!

 
At 12:27 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

How do i compile the modded version...?

 
At 7:37 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Very nice ! All the WindowsCleaningLovers should use it ! And for Msn Messenger, you should use the mod Cameno, it's tabs the chat windows all in one, just like your WindowDock !

Your app would be perfect if new windows could be tabbed automatically...I'll check for new mods !

 
At 12:55 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

could someone please mod this and add small close buttons on each tab, like in firefox 2?

 
At 6:42 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi! I want to thank you for letting me use Jedi Window Dock which i find it to be a nice handy app, but as i'm keyboard oriented using it often comes to my mind, how nice and much more efficient it would be if the tabs could be changed with shortcut keys, e.g. 0+1 for the first, 0+2 for the second, and thus successively, as it is done with a Firefox extension named MouselessBrowsing. May be you'll think "Well go ahead!" but i don't have that knowledge so i leave it to your creativity to deal with that. By the way, when i exit the program awakes the following message: APPLICATION ERROR The order "0x7c9518d0" was compered with the memory 0x005c0073" and it can't be "written" if you want to close the program click [OK]. . (Well, it's more or less something like that, since that is the closest to english that i can bring from the japanese.) Then appears the dialog box saying that the program doesn't respond so i have to stop it with the Task Manager. Is there anything that can be done at respect? Best of luck. Adieu. Nob

 
At 7:15 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks about this, Hanna!

Oh, and good job! :)

 
At 5:37 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

great job !
but can you let possibility to change title of tabbed browsing after create?

 
At 7:44 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hello!

The corected link to tray icon mod is
http://www.blueshiftlabs.net/2006/10/09/jedi-window-dock-icon-mod/

Cheers, Roman

 
At 4:03 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The ability to automatically add a window to the tab without having to manually add it each time would be nice.

 
At 9:19 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I made a slightly different version using your code:
http://www.warlocks.be/page.cfm?id=49&submenuid=67

It's now a screentoolbar with tabs

 
At 7:13 AM, Blogger Calvin Spealman said...

I remembered this from the original App A Day and came searching when I needed to work in four Putty sessions simultaneously. The day we have this kind of customization built into our windowing systems will be a great day.

 
At 9:44 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It would be possible to edit the tabs' order.

 
At 12:19 PM, Anonymous Los said...

I just wanted to say that this app really rocks! Also, know that in Vista some graphical work might be needed since you see some lines in the windows. Also, compatibility with Excel and word 2007 as well. Can't really use excel and word 2007 with this version. All normal, since I am sure since this was written it was not tested on all apps and in vista. Not a negative, just a word in case anyone wants to update the app!

Thanks again for this great app!

 
At 5:02 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is cool. It can be used in many different ways. Can you please add shortcuts capability to it? Thanks!

 

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