Auto dual panel in Windows 7

[Osamar]

It could be possible in W7 to have an "icon" in the bottom bar, that opens two explorers and anchors them, one on the left, and another on the right?

It could be possible with PowerShell, SmallBasic, or something similar??

 

[3dcgi]

I would guess there's some way to do it. You might want to check out AutoHotKey in addition to the options you listed.

 

[Davros]

explorer or internet expolrer ?
Im sure explorer has a dual pane view
if its internet explorer nview lets you save windows positions a monitor assignments you could use ie and firefox instead of 2 copies of ie put ie on one monitor put firefox on another save the positions in nview and create a batch file to launch ie and firefox

 

[Blazkowicz]

wow, that's a good idea!
I've checked Autohotkey and the tiling feature doesn't seem to be there.

A .vbs file (VBScript) may be the way to do it. I've looked around and found an example script that does that, minimize all/tile horz/tile vert/cascade all. But it operates on all windows.
On the same page, an example script to spawn explorer windows.

http://wsh2.uw.hu/ch14h.html

I run XP by the way, the feature exists since windows 95 (you ctrl-click two or more items in the task bar, then right-click). Or even windows 3.0, accessible in another way. with Windows 7 someone had the clever idea of that anchor mechanism.

I'm not sure we can create some kind of shell object in the script that will only operate on two windows. It might be like the windows 3.x feature, which dealt with all windows too.

Sure, powershell is probably the intended replacement for VBscript at desktop scripting.

 

[Blazkowicz]

Well using Autohotkey, you can easily spawn an explorer windows, then move and resize it, so you can do just that in a script with hard-coded values, and pretend those are tiled windows.
/edit : doh! there even are "A_ScreenWidth" and "A_ScreenHeight" values.
http://www.autohotkey.com/docs/commands/WinMove.htm

You should really install Autohotkey, then look at its help file. It can do a whole lot of stuff, the language is easy plus you can find a lot of example scripts on the website.

Here's my default autohotkey file (gets run at startup), consisting mostly of hotkeys (# is the windows key, except for the directives ; my keyboard is azerty). You don't have to use hotkeys in a script (but if you want to use some, it's the obvious software to get)

#NoEnv
SendMode Input
#NoTrayIcon
#a::menu,tray,Icon

#e::Run "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\My Computer.lnk"
#s::Run "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Start Menu\Command.lnk"

#q::Run Sndvol32
#up::SoundSet, +4
#down::SoundSet,-4
#left::SoundSet, 4
#right::SoundSet, 12
#Home::SoundSet,100,Wave
#End::SoundSet,10,Wave
#PgUp::SoundSet,+10,Wave
#PgDn::SoundSet,-10,Wave

#&::Run, "d:\util\nvidia\RivaTuner's shortcut to gamma1_bis.lnk"
#é::Run, "d:\util\nvidia\RivaTuner's shortcut to gamma1_1.lnk"
#"::Run, "d:\util\nvidia\RivaTuner's shortcut to gamma1_2.lnk"
#'::Run, "d:\util\nvidia\RivaTuner's shortcut to gamma1_3.lnk"
#F1::Run,"d:\util\nvidia\RivaTuner's shortcut to 1024 100Hz.lnk"

#p::^è

#n::
IfWinExist Untitled - Notepad
	WinActivate
else
	Run Notepad
return


#z::
IfWinNotExist ahk_class Winamp v1.x
    return
ControlSend, ahk_parent, z
return
#w::
IfWinNotExist ahk_class Winamp v1.x
    return
ControlSend, ahk_parent, w
return
#c::
IfWinNotExist ahk_class Winamp v1.x
    return
ControlSend, ahk_parent, c
return
#b::
IfWinNotExist ahk_class Winamp v1.x
    return
ControlSend, ahk_parent, b
return
#v::
IfWinNotExist ahk_class Winamp v1.x
    return
ControlSend, ahk_parent, v
return
#Ins::
IfWinNotExist ahk_class Winamp v1.x
    return
ControlSend, ahk_parent, {up}
return
#Del::
IfWinNotExist ahk_class Winamp v1.x
    return
ControlSend, ahk_parent, {down}
return