WatchCat
WatchCat is a little freeware utility I found quite a few years back (I was developing on Windows 95 at the time, if that gives you any idea).
It’s a sweet little tool. It can minimize windows to the system tray, so they’re not hogging so much space on your taskbar. Once WatchCat is running, you just right-click on a window’s Minimize button, and away it goes; left-click the tray icon, and the window pops right back.
It can also hide windows entirely (not even a tray icon; use WatchCat’s context menu to bring them back), and you can even set it to automatically minimize/tray/hide certain windows after a timeout period. You tell it how to identify windows (which ones get hidden, which ones get minimized to the tray, what each window’s timeout value is, whether you need a password to bring the window back, etc.) by writing regular expressions against the class name and/or title bar text. (I used to use this for Web-based admin interfaces, so they would vanish from my desktop after a while of disuse, and not be sitting there for anyone to read over my shoulder — remember, Windows 95, so no “lock workstation”.)
You can also assign hotkeys to various Windows functions. I used to set it so the Pause key would start the screensaver. (I never did figure out why Microsoft didn’t do that by default.) Then I would set a password on my screensaver… so with WatchCat, I guess I did have a “lock workstation” on Win95.
Much time has passed. I’m no longer developing on Windows 95 (thank God).
But I just found myself needing WatchCat again.
I’ve been doing a lot of refactoring the past few days, so I always have a large number of applications open. (Since it’s not like I have an IDE with built-in refactoring or anything.) (Yet.) (Anxiously waiting for the Diamondback release in November sometime.)
Here’s a quick look at my taskbar right now:
- Task Manager (launched from my Startup menu, so I can always keep an eye on CPU usage) (except when Windows randomly loses Task Manager’s tray icon)
- Visual SourceSafe
- Delphi 6 (where I’m actually doing the coding)
- Visual Studio .NET 2003 (in case I need to make changes to SearchForm)
- SearchForm (an app I wrote in Visual Studio .NET; it lets me do fancy searches through Delphi source, drag files to the Delphi IDE, and check files in/out of VSS. It’s sort of DGrok’s little brother, but I wrote it on work time, so it’s proprietary.)
- DelphiTools (a Delphi code parser and refactoring tool that we hired John Brant to write for us; we use this for Find References, Rename refactorings, and a few more-specialized tools)
- Programmer’s File Editor (an MDI text editor where I keep a few cross-reference files open, like the “which unit is symbol X defined in?” report and the “who descends from class Y?” and “who implements interface Z?” reports that DelphiTools generates. I use an MDI editor so I don’t have to have three SDI editors all taking up space in the taskbar.)
- Untitled - Notepad (various notes I make and refer back to throughout the day)
I’ve had all of these open all day. Then there are the browser windows I open when I need to look for something online (or blog about WatchCat), the chat windows from conversations on our internal Jabber server, Outlook whenever I need to read my e-mail, SharpReader and RssBandit whenever I’m reading RSS feeds, Windows Explorer windows, etc.
I run out of taskbar space reeeeeal quick these days. I think it’s been at least twice today that I’ve overflowed and the taskbar has acquired a scrollbar. So I went looking for WatchCat, so each app could be 16 pixels wide, instead of 40 or whatever a taskbar button is.
I had some trouble finding it; the author’s Web site is no more, and a couple of the shareware sites I found didn’t have WatchCat listed anymore. I eventually found it here.
There have been some new features since the last time I used it. Now you can assign hotkeys to various folders on your hard drive, so that just hitting a key will bring up a context menu showing the folder contents. I am definitely gonna have to spend some time fiddling with that. (Actually, maybe they did have it before. But I’ve spent a lot of time trying to do the same thing with the Quick Launch bar and its relatives, and I’m thinking WatchCat may be a way better solution.)
Only downside is that it doesn’t grok 32-bit icons, so when it paints the icons in the menu, anything with transparency looks kind of ugly. But I can live with that.
One odd thing: on WatchCat’s About page, it says it’s distributed under the GPL. Yet it isn’t distributed with source. Doesn’t that violate the license?
October 26th, 2004 at 10:21 pm
Hi, as a replacement for Task Manager I’m using and recommend Process Explorer from Sysinternals:
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml
October 28th, 2004 at 12:18 am
There is also a little utility that does similar things - "The Wonderful Icon" at thewonderfulicon.com
November 1st, 2004 at 3:45 pm
Actually, it can be distributed under the GPL if the source is available on demand.
From the GPL
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
* a) . . .
* b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
* c) . . .
So they can distribute it under the GPL without source if they provide a means for the source to be obtained.
November 1st, 2004 at 7:00 pm
Hmm. I guess that could be. And that three years may have expired by now.
Oh well. It’s still a cool little app.
April 2nd, 2005 at 8:04 pm
This ( http://download.lastreset.net/lucy.exe ) is a weird little application. It allows you to alter ANY window into alphablend or transparent mode. It also has a cool feature which hides your taskbar! it will be GONE and it’ll give you a small little handy window instead. Kind’a cool if you are annoyed from the windows taskbar and don’t want to auto-hide it. since when auto-hiding, still if you accidently touch it with the mouse, it’ll appear.
December 19th, 2005 at 11:03 pm
Joe,
Came across your blog whilst looking for alternatives to Watchcat 2.0 that I still use with XP. Saw you mentioned about the source. I’m not sure if you got it from his website or not but I have it if you want it… it was the last source he released before stopping work on it.
I’d love a recompiled version of it as it occassionally crashes on all the installations I’ve done but it’s invaluable.
Regards
Steph
April 7th, 2006 at 6:41 pm
Hi Steph,
Can you post the source code someplace? I love WatchCat and use it for a long time. But there’s a thing which irritates me: under XP it doesn’t work properly with console applications. If you try to hide it, it just disappears, and there’s no way to bring it back - only kill it in Task Manager
So, I thought, I might try to fix this…
What version have you got?
Thanks,
Gene.
April 18th, 2006 at 10:44 am
Hi Gene,
I love WatchCat too and have been using it for more than 8 years. I have the source as well for the (2.0 build 38) and was able to build a debug version couple of years back for the same console application issue, but I am not familiar with the windows programming, and I couldn’t find anything obvious. I think it should be easy to fix for someone who is familiar with windows programming API (I think the existing enumeration of windows needs to be augmented with a new call to get console windows). If you want I can email the source to you. There doesn’t seem to be any notification mechanism for this blog, so I might not see your response here though, so send me an email to my gmail a/c "hari dara" (with no space).
Thanks,
Hari
April 19th, 2006 at 9:08 am
Hi Hari,
I like that feature very much - just wanted to share…
Thank you very much for your reply. I will send you an e-mail shortly and will post on this blog if and when I have any progress with modification of the source code.
About notifications: Mozilla and Netscape have a feature to check a page for updates - in the properties of a bookmark you can set how often it should check for updates. You browser must be up at those intervals, though. This is how I learned of you reply
Thanks,
Gene.
August 30th, 2006 at 4:19 am
I’ve been using Watchcat v2.0 Build 57 for so many years I can’t remember, still cannot find a tool that can hide windows better!
I use the key just below ESCape to HIDE any window, then I press ALT + that key to see the list of hidden windows to quickly restore it - can’t find a program that works as good as this anyway!!!
You’d think someone would have released something that can stay hidden like Watchcat where nobody other than myself know it is running and I have these nice hotkeys to hide/unhide windows.
November 8th, 2006 at 7:11 pm
Yay, I finally found a place to download WatchCat… since I lost it…
Perfect for playing games during my boring CAD classes ^.^
January 22nd, 2007 at 7:21 am
I have also been using WatchCat for many years. Every once in a while I go back out on the internet and see if maybe he’s started working on his app again. It does get harder and harder to find anything on WatchCat. I’m not a software developer and I couldn’t do anything with the source code if I had it. I am glad to have my installations of it that I have been saving all these years. I still have the installation package for build 38 and some current build ZIPs for builds 54, 55, and 68. Build 68 was the last current build that I was able to get before he stopped work on it. Build 68 has been pretty stable for me. I’m using it on Windows XP SP2. I haven’t tried it on Vista.
March 9th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Hi guys!
Could anyone put up some working builds of Watchcat on Rapidshare, perhaps? I’d like to see if they’ll work on my system. Thanks!
August 5th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
can anybody post or tell me where to get the source of watchcat… then I’ll post an updated version!
June 20th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
WatchCat 2.0, Build 68
Window hiding/showing tool.
Just installed on Vista. Seems to work. Enjoy!
http://rapidshare.com/files/123945154/wcatcur68.zip
If you want the installer for WatchCat 2.0, Build 38, here it is.
Install it and then use the Build 68 ZIP to update it.
http://rapidshare.com/files/123946371/wcatsi.zip
[Use at your own risk. -- Ed.]
July 13th, 2008 at 10:17 am
I someone have the source code for it. It whould be great if you could post a link.
August 17th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
well, if anyone’s still watching this, I had/have the 38 build of the source code:
http://rapidshare.com/files/138127644/WCATSRC.ZIP
December 16th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Thanks for the source Flynn.
December 16th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Here is the latest version with source code included. http://micke.grande.nu/wcatcur.zip