[REL] Drop2Open: Windows 7 taskbar tweak

[icedicicle]

Drop2Open: A Windows 7 Taskbar Tweak

What's wrong with the Windows 7 taskbar?

The Windows 7 taskbar is brilliant in all aspects except for this one and is a very good answer to the OSX dock. However unlike the OSX dock, the Windows 7 taskbar's default behaviour when dragging files onto a docked program is to pin it to the program's jump list instead of opening it. Having used OSX for a while, I appreciated the work-flow that dragging and dropping files onto the OSX dock facilitated and was looking to emulate this behaviour in Windows 7.

The default Drag&Drop behaviour:

The new Drag&Drop behaviour:

Take Note

The tooltips will not change when you use the program. It will still say "Pin to" when it actually opens and "Open with" when it actually pins. I'm working on a solution to this for a later release.

Description

Drop2Open is an AutoHotKey script for Windows 7 that reverses the default behaviour when dragging a file onto a pinned taskbar program. Simply dragging and dropping will now open the file in the program, while Shift-Drag and Drop will pin the program to the jump list.

After installation, Drop2Open launches on start-up and runs in your system tray. It detects when you drag a file onto a docked program and proceeds to open it. When running it only takes up about 3MB of memory so speed should not be an issue.

If you like it, spread the word!

Download

Click the link below to download Drop2Open from my blog:

Download Drop2Open

Should you discover any bugs, please feel free to reply in this thread on on my website.

Edited August 19, 2009 by icedicicle

[Dead_Monkey]

This is a good project. I'm not a Mac user, but I've wanted this behavior for a while.

I can't remember where I got the idea that it should work that way, but I think that some version of Windows used to let you drag documents onto shortcuts to open them. XP doesn't seem to allow it now that I'm testing it at work, so it must have been old.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Very nice but I'm anal about programs running on the PC, even if they claim to only use 3mb.

Wish MS would implement this!

[phot0nic]

You can also replicate this by holding down the shift key while dragging a file.

[Trong]

You can also replicate this by holding down the shift key while dragging a file.

lol wut. I had no idea you could do that! Thanks for the tip.

I guess I don't really need this program then if it just reverses it... :/

[Dead_Monkey]

lol wut. I had no idea you could do that! Thanks for the tip.

I guess I don't really need this program then if it just reverses it... :/

I think I still prefer the default behavior to be launch, so I'll be using this when I get home.

[icedicicle]

lol wut. I had no idea you could do that! Thanks for the tip.

I guess I don't really need this program then if it just reverses it... :/

Yep, you could simply do that. This is more of a tweak anyway. I felt it was more intuitive to drag and drop without holding shift.

If you're worried about resources, and you're already running some other AHK scripts, you could just copy the source code into your own AHK file.

[the_architect]

I didn't know about the shift trick! Thanks guys, I think drag to open should be the default behavior though.

[9999]

7 Taskbar Tweaker can do that, as well as some extra stuff (i.e. middle click to close a window)