Internet/Windows Explorer and Outlook Express feature highly
customizable toolbars. These can be altered so as to better
suit your needs & reduce clutter. The process is the same
for each of these, though I’ll illustrate with Internet
Explorer. By default Internet Explorer will display
something like this.
By selecting
View, Toolbars (or right clicking on a
toolbar) you can select the toolbars you wish to have
visible. The standard ones available are Standard Buttons,
Address Bar and Links. I personally I just
disable the Links toolbar.
The Lock the
Toolbars option, when Selected, locks the
position of the toolbars wherever you have positioned them,
removing the resizing bars and slightly reducing the size of
the toolbar. I’d recommend doing this once you’ve finished
customizing the toolbars as it provides a slightly bigger
window. Should you need to reposition/resize the toolbars
later simply Unselect the option as needed.
Now select
View, Toolbars, Customize (Alternatively
right click on a toolbar and select Customize).
Available/Current toolbar buttons.
The left-hand list here can be used to select buttons to
Add to the Standard Buttons toolbar. With the right-hand
list you can re-arrange currently visible buttons or
Remove unwanted ones.
Text options.
This option specifies how descriptive text for toolbar
buttons is displayed (The text is indicated in the
Available/Current toolbar buttons menu):
Show text
labels.
This sets that descriptive text should be displayed beneath
all toolbar buttons. Toolbar size is greatly increased when
using this option.
Selective text
on right.
This sets that descriptive text is displayed to the right of
certain buttons, e.g. Search. This provides a vertically
smaller toolbar.
No text labels.
This sets that no descriptive text is to be displayed. This
provides the smallest possible toolbar & is recommended once
you know what the buttons displayed do.
Icon options.
This option specifies the size of the toolbar buttons –
Small or Large icons. The
advantages/disadvantages of each size should be apparent
enough.
Pressing
Reset will restore the default installation
options for the toolbar, if needed for some reason. Once
finished, press the Close button. Pictured beneath is
the current toolbar setup which I use, as you can see, it’s
a lot smaller than the initial setup & contains only the
buttons which I need.
