One of the things about working in Windows, is the sheer amount of programs and Explorer windows you are able have open at one time. And this can be a real help when you have multiple snippets of information which you want to read or edit in different applications. With the average size of the desktop resolution growing through the years, it’s now not uncommon for even inexperienced users to be multitasking and perhaps have browsers, document readers and editors and ordinary Explorer windows all open and being used at once.
The problem with so many open windows is that only one window is ever active and has the focus of the system. To be able to do something in another window you have to click in it or Alt+Tab to have interaction with it. One of the most common things you will probably want to do when switching between different windows is scrolling down through a web page, document or list of files etc.
As a simple scenario; you’re writing a document in one window while reading information from a web page in another next to it. While typing, if you want to scroll down the web page, the browser has to be clicked on to make it active, and then you can do so. If you now type something, you will type in the browser because the focus is not on what you was typing but the browser window. The document window now has to be made active again to resume editing. I’ve lost count of the number of times I have done something similar whether it is typing or simply trying to scroll on a window that isn’t active.
For Mac users at least, it is possible to scroll down a page in a background window without making it active which on the face of it, doesn’t sound like a big deal. But when you think about it, having this simple feature can be pretty useful when multitasking and it makes you wonder why it has never been in Windows.
A small utility called Wizmouse can give you this functionality of being able to scroll in other inactive windows without taking the focus away from the one you are working in. Just hover the mouse over the chosen window and scroll while not needing to click on it. Easy as that.
The program is less than a 600K download and consumes around 500K-6MB of system memory. Once the install is finished, the configuration window above will open and give you the chance to make changes like starting the program with Windows, enabling left clicking on the tray icon to enable/disable or hiding the tray icon completely.
‘Enabling the mouse wheel for applications without wheel support’ will convert mouse wheel into scrollbar commands and hopefully allow scrolling to work when it usually isn’t available. If you want to bring the window you’re scrolling on to the front, there is an option there as well as ‘Reverse mouse scrolling’ will mimic the ‘Natural’ function on Mac OSX Lion.
I am using Wizmouse on Windows 7 X64 and it has worked great on all windows tried so far, but will point out after closing the configuration screen there may be a few second freeze of the mouse pointer when clicking on a window with a scroll bar. This only happens once and is fine after that. The developer does mention that touchpads may or may not work due to the way some drivers work, and some Logitech mice might have the odd issue if not using the latest drivers.
Compatible with Windows 2000, XP, Vista and Windows 7 32 and 64bit
The CNet link on the site does not contain their stupid installer.
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