AutoHotkey - make window stay right in taskbar

Question

Is there a way to achieve this using autohotkey: I want some windows to be always at the top right of the taskbar no matter how many programs I opened. So, for exmaple, currently it is like this. But, I want notepads always to be on the far right of the taskbar. So, for example like this. So, No matter how many programs I open, I want on the taskbar always notepads to be on the far right.

I'm using windows 8.1 and the latest version of AutoHotkey. Some explanations: I don't want notepads' window itself to be on the far right of the screen. No, but instead I want just icon on the taskbar of notepad to be on the far right. So, if I for example open new programs, I want the icon to be automatically moved to the right, so that no icons be after notepads' icon.

I searched on internet and I didn't find anything useful or similar. So, what I'm trying to do is to make notepads' icons always at the right. I don't care if all notepads I open will be moved to the right or just opened ones to be on the right, it doesn't matter, I just open 4 notepads and keep them until I turn off my computer, so I will never close them.

How to achieve it? I am sure there must be a way because AutoHotkey is very good software and has a lot of enhancements.

Thank you in advance. This is my first question on this site, so please be respectful. Thank.

Answer 1

AFAIK the only way to move icons on taskbar is to drag them, so this is a AHK script that does the procedure programmatically:

^F1::
    toggle = true
    Window = 0
    while (toggle) {
        OldWindow = %Window%
        WinGet Window, List

        if (Window > OldWindow) {
            SetTitleMatchMode, RegEx
            IfWinExist, Notepad$
            {
                WinActivate
            } Else {
                ; MsgBox Cannot find Notepad window.
                Continue
            }
            ; absolute coordinate
            CoordMode Pixel, Screen
            CoordMode Mouse, Screen
            Sleep, 100 ; wait for the Notepad icon to be fully highlighted, because Windows have animation of lighting icon
            ImageSearch, FoundX, FoundY, 0, 0, A_ScreenWidth, A_ScreenHeight, *5 *TransWhite D:\np.bmp
            ; allow some variation because Windows have anti-aliasing etc.

            ; ImageSearch, FoundX, FoundY, 0, 0, A_ScreenWidth, A_ScreenHeight, *10 *Icon1 %A_WinDir%\system32\notepad.exe
            ; because of some reason the above command does not work
            if ErrorLevel = 2
                MsgBox Could not conduct the search.
            else if ErrorLevel = 1
                MsgBox Icon could not be found on the screen.
            else {
                MouseGetPos OldX, OldY
                SetDefaultMouseSpeed, 0
                MouseMove, %FoundX%, %FoundY%
                Click down left
                MouseMove, A_ScreenWidth, %FoundY% ; move the mouse all the way to the right
                Click up left
                MouseMove, %OldX%, %OldY% ; move mouse to old position
            }
        }

        Sleep, 500 ; can be omitted
    }
Return

^F2::
    toggle = false
Return

Notes:

• Because of some reason, I can't use *Icon1 %A_WinDir%\system32\notepad.exe or similar, you need to provide a file D:\np.bmp consists of Notepad tray icon when Notepad is in focus.
• Press ^F1 to turn on, ^F2 to turn off.
• The part used for dragging Notepad task icon executes every time number of windows reported by WinGet increase, i.e., when you open a new window.
• Notepad window is on focus every time it is dragged to the right.
• I don't know any way to run command every time except using an infinite loop (while (toogle)). That may consume CPU.

Answer 2

I am not aware of any built-in or low-bar solution for this problem. If you really need this functionally I guess you would have to craft your own helper app that allows you to specify a process and rearrange its window button on the task bar. This can be achieved, but requires some knowledge of Win32 and C++/C#.I tried it for 30 minutes (my personal limit).

This is what I did: This thread is the perfect starting point: How to get the processes that have systray icon Point 6. Gives you a working solution for outdated (32bit) versions of Windows: A tool to order the window buttons in your taskbar Unfortunately, it does not work under 64 bit OS and Windows 10.

Nonetheless, some discoveries I made during my exploration with the sample provide in 6: To find the Taskbar on Window 10, use the following code:

...
//IntPtr hToolbar = User32.FindWindowEx( hTask, IntPtr.Zero, "ToolbarWindow32", null ); xp +
IntPtr taskBarWnd = User32.FindWindowEx(hTask, IntPtr.Zero, "MSTaskListWClass", null);

You will need a 64 bit definition of the TBBUTTON struct:

[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
public struct TBBUTTON
{
    public int iBitmap;
    public int idCommand;
    [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Explicit)]
    private struct TBBUTTON_U
    {
        [FieldOffset(0)]
        public byte fsState;
        [FieldOffset(1)]
        public byte fsStyle;
        [FieldOffset(0)]
        private IntPtr bReserved;
    }
    private TBBUTTON_U union;
    public byte fsState { get { return union.fsState; } set { union.fsState = value; } }
    public byte fsStyle { get { return union.fsStyle; } set { union.fsStyle = value; } }
    public UIntPtr dwData;
    public IntPtr iString;
}

This should give you a good starting point for a roll-your-own solution.

Another helpful starting point could be the 7+ Taskbar Tweaker, which has some very handy taskbar tweaks (as the name suggests). 7+TT also offers a library that does most of the (black) magic for you and could also server as a starting point for a DIY solution (plus it works even on Windows 1607. Take a look at the print taskbar contents sample; AppId is here a good hook to find the right Taskbar Button Window/Button Group).

Good luck.

Update
With the help of the 7+TT Lib your goal is pretty easy to achieve.
Here is a working sample I have made (the archive contains the source of my sample as well as a binary in the x64/Release folder, called taskbar_pusher, that should work with Windows 7 - 10 up to the latest release v1709).

You have to specify the AppId of the button group you would like to push to the rear end of your taskbar like this as command line parameter:

./taskbar_pusher {1AC14E77-02E7-4E5D-B744-2EB1AE5198B7}\notepad.exe

You get the AppId from the CLI output of my tool.
You should be able to call it parameterize like this with AHK (though I am not very familiar with AHK).

PS: I had some problems with my secondary taskbar and therefore disabled the code to detect it.