I need your Bat Skills

[Jesse]

I'm making a toggle button on my G110 for the Windows 7 Sidebar.

 

To turn on:

START "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Sidebar\sidebar.exe"

 

To turn off:

TASKKILL /F /IM sidebar.exe

 

How can i write the batch file so it changes functions once used (a simple toggle button)? I'm not familiar with anything other than the basic basic commands.

 

Thanks for any help.

[Jesse]

[ECF]

You would need to do some coding to get this to work as a toggle button.

 

But a shortcut would be to create 2 batch files. One that turns the sidebar on and one that turns the sidebar off. Then simply create desktop icons which link to both and name them "on" and "off" or something like that.

 

You can then just run which one you like.

[dimitrifrom31]

I'm making a toggle button on my G110 for the Windows 7 Sidebar.

 

To turn on:

START "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Sidebar\sidebar.exe"

 

To turn off:

TASKKILL /F /IM sidebar.exe

 

How can i write the batch file so it changes functions once used (a simple toggle button)? I'm not familiar with anything other than the basic basic commands.

 

Thanks for any help.

 

try that :

 

TASKKILL /F /IM sidebar.exe
!if errorlevel 1 goto end
START "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Sidebar\sidebar.exe" 
:end

[Jesse]

No luck, appreciate that tho! Maybe the 2 batch file idea where when one runs and the last command is to overwrite the file with the other file so each time they get called they switch contents?

[dimitrifrom31]

cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Sidebar"
TASKKILL /F /IM sidebar.exe
if not errorlevel 1 goto end
START sidebar.exe
:end

[Jesse]

It didn't work but when I change

 

START sidebar.exe

 

to

 

CALL sidebar.exe

 

It worked! So thanks for that code.

 

Now how might I go about not making the command prompt to show up on the screen nor in the taskbar?

[dimitrifrom31]

start /min myfile.bat

 

 

in another .bat of course

 

edit : it will run minimized but not hidden, thats not possible afaik.

[Jesse]

I've got that going, just wasnt sure if we could remove it from showing up at all. What would be the code to close the box once it has opened - it doesnt close?

[ECF]

If it is a command box then you you can simply put the exit command at the end of the batch file which closes the commandline box.

[Jesse]

Had to add EXIT before and after I guess

EXIT
:end
EXIT

 

Only little bug left is when I double click the shortcut icon to start this whole process it works perfectly and the window doesn't even show up in the taskbar, but when I use the shortcut key on my keyboard that is using the same shortcut I'm double clicking on the desktop the box does show up. Any ideas?

[Jesse]

So windows sign + g brings Sidebar to the foreground. I found this program to create a shortcut to hide it.

 

http://www.howtogeek.com/geekers/VistaSidebarHider.zip

 

Now, if there was someway to simulate keystrokes in a batch file I could create that toggle instead of having 2 buttons set to use those two-stroke hotkeys.

[ECF]

You may be able to do everything with this.

 

http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/index.shtml

[Jesse]

I think because I have gotten rid of the need to close / start the program I actually needed the function to have a way to minimize it. I guess I'm going to figure out if there is another way to minimize it without that program adding another windows shortcut key or any need for a program.