Thursday, November 06, 2008

Always on Top: Keep Any Window Visible Always

Imagine a situation where you are browsing the web in Firefox and simultaneously watching some video podcast in Windows Movie Player or QuickTime.

That Firefox window is running in "Maximized" mode so each time you switch to Firefox, the media player window disappears as it moves to the background behind Firefox.

So what do you do to prevent that video clip from hiding even while you continue to work in a browser?

Enter "Always on Top" – it’s a free utility written in Autohotkey that will stick any program window to the foreground of your desktop with a simple keyboard shortcut. Some examples:

chrome-vlc
Browser running in foreground but QuickTime is always visible

calculator excel
Keep the notepad or calculator handy while using an Excel Spreadsheet

To get started, download the Always On Top utility from box.net (<200k)>

You no longer have to worry about arranging windows side-by-side to copy-paste information from one window to another.

If you like to disable sticking and restore the default window behavior, just press the same Ctrl+Space shortcut again.


Video Demo - Always on Top Utility

The program is written in Autohotkey with a single line of code:

^SPACE::  Winset, Alwaysontop, , A

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