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View Full Version : Everything you need to know about Dell's Switcher Bar


Menneisyys
02-20-2006, 08:09 PM
Dell ships a little application for easy switching and closing of running programs on various Dell Pocket PC's.

It's not activated by default; you need to explicitly go to Start/Settings/System and click Switcher Bar to activate it. Then, it just puts an icon on the toolbar; by clicking it, you can , as can be seen in this screenshot (http://www.winmobiletech.com/kuvat/SwitcherBarPic.bmp.png).

It, as has been pointed out, can't be instructed to auto-start at reboots. You can, however, make it to do so with some manual tweaking. Just copy this file (http://www.winmobiletech.com/sekalaiset/SwitcherBar.lnk) (right click the link and choose "Save file as") to \Windows\Startup via File Explorer or Total Commander with the WinCE FS plug-in (http://pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=15577).

I, however, don't use Switcher Bar. It's just too buggy (in a lot of cases, it just doesn't display any program name running, as can be easily seen in this screenshot (http://www.winmobiletech.com/kuvat/SwitcherBarDoesnShowAnything.bmp.png); you may also want to read this AximSite thread (http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?t=116969) on this bug) and is definitely inferior to free (!) tools like Magic Button (http://www.trancreative.com/mb.aspx). I really recommend the latter instead of Switcher Bar – it is really capable of a lot and runs just great on WM5 devices including the Dell Axim x51v.

Also see this article (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=389450) on other, practical uses of Magic Button.

PetiteFlower
02-20-2006, 10:20 PM
I've never had any bugs like that with Switcher Bar.

tanalasta
02-25-2006, 03:25 AM
I didn't have a problem with switcher bar other than the fact it looked ugly in the middle of my today bar ... covering up program titles.

Then again, even though switcher bar is a nice addition, SPB Pocketplus 3.0 makes switcher bar plenty obsolete! Why WM5 didn't include a dedicated close/minimise function like SPB did is beyond me.

DaViD_BRaNDoN
02-26-2006, 06:10 PM
Switcher Bar kinda make my Axim X51 crawls after a few uses. Have stop using it for good and turned to WisBar Lite :mrgreen:

Brad Adrian
02-26-2006, 06:18 PM
I tried using it for awhile, too, and opted to go back to using the same features in Pocket Plus (IMO, one of the best apps ever created!).