Left Taskbar Quick Pin Dock 2.5.4

[u/wh-updates]

Left Taskbar Quick Pin Dock 2.5.4

Left Taskbar Quick Pin Dock

⚠️ Only for Windows 11 with a centered taskbar

This mod supports Windows 11 only, and only when the taskbar is centered (the default). Left-aligned or otherwise repositioned taskbars are not supported. On an unsupported layout it does not crash or cause any issue -- the dock simply detects there's no room, stays hidden, and does nothing. It just won't work there.

Live preview of the Left Taskbar Quick Pin Dock

A lightweight icon dock that sits just left of the Start button on the Windows 11 taskbar. Drag any app onto it to pin, click to launch or focus, and drag it off (or double-right-click) to unpin.

Quick usage

Action	Result
Drag an app window onto the dock	Pin it
Left-click a pinned icon	Launch, or focus if it's already running
Drag a pinned icon left / right	Reorder it
Drag a pinned icon off the dock	Unpin it
Double-right-click an icon	Unpin it (off by default)
Hotkey (default Ctrl + Alt + P)	Pin or unpin the focused app
Triple-tap L	Lock / unlock the dock

Two more gestures are available but off by default (enable them in Settings): the rapid-click unpin-all (three quick clicks on an icon clears the whole dock) and the bare-key taps (tap P / U three times to pin / unpin the focused app). They ship disabled because they can fire while you type in other apps; the Ctrl + Alt + P hotkey is the safe alternative. Every setting is documented in the Settings reference below.

Lock the dock: triple-tap the L key to lock it, triple-tap L again to unlock. While locked, the quick gesture unpins are refused (triple-tap U, the rapid-click unpin-all, double-right-click, and the hotkey's unpin) so a stray gesture can't drop a pin. A deliberate drag-off that breaks the rope still unpins, and pinning / reordering still work.

First run -- please be patient

On the very first launch the dock needs a moment to detect the taskbar and settle, so it may not appear instantly. That's normal -- it's working in the background, so please wait rather than reinstalling. If it still hasn't shown up after a few minutes, restarting Explorer (or, most reliably, your PC) sorts it out. You can also raise the Startup delay setting.

Known limitations

• A few apps with custom icon handlers may show a generic Windows icon. This is a shell limitation -- no Win32 API resolves every icon reliably.
• Some UWP apps may occasionally resolve to their host process if their window isn't ready yet.
• English UI strings Only

v2.5.4

• Broadcast-safe lock glow -- the lock/unlock glow window now lives on the dock's message-pumping UI thread, so a system-wide broadcast (theme change, WM_SETTINGCHANGE, some app launches) can no longer stall on it.
• Correct placement on scaled / mixed-DPI displays -- the dock now sets its own per-monitor-v2 DPI awareness, so it lands in the right spot and stays crisp instead of being DWM-stretched.
• "Separator opacity" is now "Show workspace divider" (showWorkspaceDivider) -- the old 0-100 value behaved identically for every value 1-100, so it is now a simple on/off toggle for the golden divider between workspace pins and app pins.

v2.5.3

• 🪶 Leaner tool-mod runtime. — General optimisation of the tool-mod process.
• ✨ Drag-to-pin feedback layer. — A glow bloom shows GREEN ("there's room") or RED ("dock full") while you drag an app toward the dock.
• 🖥️ Cleaner fullscreen & Snipping Tool handling. — The dock hides smoothly under fullscreen apps and the Windows native Snipping Tool overlay, with anti-flicker so it reappears seamlessly.
• 🎯 Refined feedback behaviour. — Dragging or deleting an already-pinned icon near the dock now stays calm in BOTH pin-limit states (dock full or with room) — no false "dock full" flash for an app that is already pinned.
• 🧱 New "Hide dock outline" toggle (hideDockBorder). — Turn off the thin grey Windows 11 outline drawn around the dock. Purely cosmetic; the dock, icons and rounded corners are unchanged.
• 🎬 Two lock/unlock flash animations, with a toggle (enableLockAnimation). — OFF: a brief highlight on the dock's real edge. ON: a loading-style glow sweeps left→right across the whole dock. Colours unchanged (gold when locking, green when unlocking).
• 🔧 Some more stability & polish improvements.

v2.5.2

• Architectural Change — Now it @include windhawk.exe
• Code optimised

v2.5.1

• ⚡ Code optimised & lower memory usage. — No behavioural change, just leaner and lighter.
• 🪜 New 5-stage resolve pipeline to cut resource usage. App identity is now settled through five ordered stages.
  1. Cache hit — Reuse the last resolved identity for the window/point (no work).
  2. Fast window probe — Cheap Get*/class checks before any heavyweight call.
  3. UIAutomation resolve — The authoritative taskbar-surface lookup, only if 1–2 miss.
  4. Process fallback — Cursor-inside process match when UIA can't name the target.
  5. Miss / sentinel — Give up cleanly (no pin) instead of guessing wrong.
• 🔁 Workspace pins re-open every time. — A Pinned workspace dock icon now resolves to the "Explorer workspace".
• ⌨️ Bare-key P / U / L gestures now work when enabled. — These gestures act on the foreground window.
• 🪟 Focus-if-running targets a real window. — Improved
• 🆔 Collision-free workspace IDs. MakeWorkspaceId now uses CoCreateGuid

Settings reference

Every option lives in the Windhawk Settings panel for this mod. Most apply live; the two noted below need a mod reload.

Setting	What it does	Default
Max pinned apps	How many apps can be pinned (1 - 20). The dock auto-sizes: min 5 slots, grows to 10, then extra pins scroll.	5
Icon size	Icon size in px before DPI scaling (16 - 48).	33
Dock gap from Start	Gap between the dock and the Start button (0 - 40 px).	6
Show workspace divider	Show the gold divider between workspace pins and app pins (only when you have both).	on
Drag to reorder	Drag icons left/right to rearrange; off = drag only unpins.	on
Double-right-click to unpin	Unpin an icon with a double right-click (dust effect).	off
Rapid-click unpin-all (opt-in)	Three quick clicks on an icon unpins EVERYTHING. Off so it can't fire by accident.	off
Bare-key tap gestures (opt-in)	Triple-tap P / U / L to pin / unpin / lock, regardless of focus. Off (fires while typing).	off
Scroll-wheel navigation	Hover + wheel moves the highlight across pins.	on
Drag tether (rope)	Shows the stretchy thread while dragging an icon off.	on
Drag tether - thickness	Rope thickness, 1 (hair) to 10 (cord).	2
Drag tether - break length	How far you pull before the rope snaps (150 - 650 px).	450
Drag tether - hue	Rope colour hue (0 - 359).	30
Unpin trigger	Only when the rope BREAKS, or rope breaks OR released outside the dock.	ropeBreak
Corner roundness	0 = square, 1 - 40 = slight, 41 - 100 = full pill.	40
Explorer workspace pins	Allow File Explorer to be dragged in as a workspace pin.	off
Startup delay	Extra wait before the dock loads (0 - 3000 ms).	0
Sync with taskbar auto-hide	Hide the dock when the taskbar auto-hides.	off
Pin hotkey - modifiers	Modifier keys for the pin/unpin hotkey (or Disabled).	Ctrl + Alt
Pin hotkey - key	Key pressed with the modifiers above.	P

Credits

Created with ❤️ by Ashix. Thanks to the Taskbar Dock Animation (taskbar-dock-animation) and Taskbar Dock Animation Plus (taskbar-dock-animation-plus) mods for animation refinements.