Why is SmartSDR CAT always on Task Bar?

Bill - K7UOP

Wondering why SmartSDR CAT resides in the Task Bar. Wouldn't it be better when minimized or the Hide button is clicked that it go to the System Tray (like DAX)?

Tim - W4TME

SmartSDR CAT is on the task bar to make it more convenient to access for configuring virtual serial ports. It was originally hidden in the system tray and we received user complaints about it not being easily accessible.

Bill - K7UOP

Guess everyone has their 'druthers'. I'd rather have it out of the way. Once ports are configured it's not used very much. As people get used to having DAX in the System Tray maybe they could live with CAT down there too. ???

W1RE

I have to agree with Bill. I would prefer SmartSDR CAT to live in the Tray. Even if you think the Tray is not the best place, having the DAX in one and CAT in the other is totally inconsistent IMO. - Bob

Greg Zenger [N2GZ]

I agree that the system tray is the proper place for a configuration utility. It should be minimized to the tray, not to the taskbar. In addition, it would be nice if SDR, DAX and CAT had different colored Icons so they could be easier to tell apart...

Jay Nation

Perhaps a user selectable option, to hide either or both to the tray, for those that like that behavior might be possible.

73, Jay - NO5J

Jay Nation

Until there are user selectable options in SmartCAT and SmartDAX, Some of us might be interested in a workaround provided by some software I found on GitHub. It's called rbtray-code.

The way it works is, first run the RBTray.exe file, then you can minimize most windows to the tray by simply right clicking either the minimize button on the window , or by holding down a Shift key and right clicking the window title bar itself.

Afterwards a left click on the tray icon will restore that window back to the desktop and taskbar, or a right click on the tray icon, will provide a menu to manually select to either restore the program, or close the program directly from the tray icon, or completely exit RBTray.  

I've been using it for the last week without mishap.

You can download a zip file that contains source code and both 32 and 64 bit exe's of rbtray-code at ...

https://github.com/benbuck/rbtray-code/archive/master.zip

the project URL is ...

https://github.com/benbuck/rbtray-code

It may not be a perfect solution, but it might do until we have one.

I just pinned a shortcut to the RBTray.exe to my taskbar for easier starts and restarts, but I suppose you could place that shortcut in your Start Up folder too. 

There is no installer, just create a new folder somewhere and copy/extract the RBTray.exe. and RBHook.dll files to it. then create a shortcut to the exe.

Everything else in the zip file is either source code or doc's. 

I don't know if it's necessary but, I've been running it with Admin privileges.

BTW, I'm using it with Windows 10 successfully.

73, Jay - NO5J