What Is It?

DeskPins is a program that will “Pin” any window to keep it “Always on Top” of other windows. While there are many other programs out there with this facility and some programs have this as a built in option for themselves, DeskPins has the extra ability to “Pin” by rules based on the Window name.

Why Would You Want It?

Loosing focus on the current window you are working in can be anything from irritating to disastrous if, like me, you are frequently looking away from the screen while typing. My recent post TIP – Stop Applications in Windows Stealing Focus gives you more information and a way to change settings to help deal with this problem. However, due to the different ways in which developers implement their programs the solution suggested doesn’t always work. DeskPins is a way of making sure that important programs that you are working in never loose focus (depending on how you set the rules ).

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Keeps any Window “Always on Top” (Topmost)
• Allows Rules to be set to Automatically “Pin” a window
• Wildcards allowed in rules
• Set Global Hotkeys

Pros: What’s Good?

• Freeware

• Intuitive & Easy to Use
• Good Rules system
• Easy setting of current windows for rules
• Low system resources

Cons:What’s Not So Good?

• Lacks portable option (no installer)

What the Developer Says:

Elias Fotinis says on his website:

Description

DeskPins can be used to make any application topmost, that is, to keep it above all other windows. Just grab a pin from the DeskPins icon in the system notification area (a.k.a. taskbar tray) and click on any window. This functionality is identical to the “Always on Top” setting found in some programs. With DeskPins you can add this feature to any program!

Features

• Unlimited number of pins available.
• Intelligent handling of various application types.
• Powerful wildcard-based automatic pin support.
• Global hotkeys.
• Negligible system resources usage.

More About What it Does in Detail:

(Click on any image to show full size where needed)

Basic Usage

To Pin an existing window simply left click on the system tray icon:

the mouse cursor changes to a pin

which you then place over the window you need to keep topmost and left click again.

A pin icon then appears in the top right of the Titlebar of the window in question.

To remove the pin simply place the mouse cursor over the pin which then changes to show a X, then left click.

Another feature is that the system tray icon tooltip shows the number of “Pinned” windows.

System Tray Menu

Right clicking on the system tray icon reveals the system tray menu

Enter Pin mode is the same as left clicking on the icon

The other menu options are self explanatory.

Help

Deskpins has a comprehensive Help file which is included in the download:

This provides extensive details on using Deskpins which although is relatively easy and intuitive to use it is good to see a developer putting time and effort into making sure users can understand how to get the best from a program.

Options Windows

There are 4 tabs under the options Window which can only be accessed by right clicking on the system tray icon to reveal the system tray menu:

The Pins Tab

Allows for changing the pin colour, the tracking timing and whether “Pin Mode” is activated by a single or double click on the system tray icon.

The Autopin Tab

This is the tab where you set the rules for automatically “Pinning” a window based on all or part of the Window Titlebar title and the Window Class. As previously noted the Help file is particularly good and should be referred to for details on setting rules.

Clicking on the Add button or Edit Button brings up the Edit Rule Window:

What I particularly like is the drag and drop targets (indicated by the blue arrow). These allow you to drag and drop the target with the mouse onto the window you wish to set a rule for. The appropriate box is then completed.

For more details on setting rule see the Deskpins Help File.

Hotkeys Tab

This is self evident in allowing the hotkey settings to be changed.

Language Tab

This allows the setting of Interface and Help File language. These are separate downloads and limited to Greek and also a Chinese Interface.

What are the Technical Details & Compatibility?

What is the My Free Review Experience?

Based on my brief experience with this utility over the past few days it will definitely be another keeper in my Portable Utilities set (Overcoming installer issues in future). So my rating is:

Very Useful and easy to use with good basic rule system

Caution

If you have a window pinned and then start a second process from this window such as an edit window it may be hidden under the “Pinned” window. This can be confusing at first but “Unpinning” the window should sort.

What Could Make It Better?

1. More complex rules to allow for example “If xxxx window exists do yyyy”
   (This would overcome the problem noted above where a new window started from a process is hidden)
2. Suggest title in edit window Description box from windows Title box

What Other Posts are Relevant?

TIP – Stop Applications in Windows Stealing Focus

TaskSwitchXP – So Much More Than a Task Changer

Daphne – Modify, Control & Kill Processes with Your Mouse

Why You Want to Use Portable Freeware Applications

Why I decided to Write this Blog

What are the Tags?

Popularity: 33% [?]

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 20th, 2008 at 6:04 am and is filed under Portable Freeware. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.