DerBar - a simple system-status bar
DerBar is a simple, slightly-configurable status bar for monitoring key system and
network parameters. It is modeled on older status-monitoring
programs such as StatBar,
WinBar, and
InfoBar, but without the configuration options of those other programs; it is
designed for compactness and compatibility, not for turning parts on
and off. The few configuration options that are
present, are accessed via the icon in the system tray. You can
move DerBar anywhere you want, by grabbing it and dragging it around,
and it will remember where you leave it next time it runs.
DerBar is compatible with all other programs and will not
conflict with DirectX games, as each of the afore-mentioned tools would
sometimes do. It works fine with WinXP and Vista+, but would likely
not work on Win98 famiily due to UNICODE support.
Download Derbar utility here
Access DerBar source code here
Revision history
1.00: Original release
1.01: Added color options for field colors
1.02: Added option to select which network interface should be used
for reading network throughput.
1.03: Add listview to show info for all interfaces
1.04: Replace interface-selection combo box in Options, with management via the listview dialog.
1.05: Add status displays for locking keyboard keys
1.06: > Add option to move main dialog back to a visible position (to deal with desktop size changes)
> Add option to make main window stay on top
1.07: > make the memory bars wider, so that 16GB data will display!
> try to detect if dialog is off-screen, and move it back onto display
1.08: > Modify call to PdhGetFormattedCounterValue(), to try to eliminate the
undocumented 0x800007D6 (PDH_CALC_NEGATIVE_DENOMINATOR) Error.
> About dialog - convert home website link from button to hyperlink
1.09: > Move systray functionality to separate file
> Integrate ClearIconTray functions to DerBar
1.10: Research into refresh messages
1.11: > Add right-click on main dialog, to *also* present the action menu
> Fix startup operations so ip_iface tables are build before reading config file
> Store show_winmsgs in INI file
1.12: Try to provide RED background for free memory, if it gets too low
1.13: Enable toggling of CAPS/NUM/SCRL keys from program interface
1.14: Double-click on DerBar dialog, now resets desktop icon colors
1.15: Add VS_VERSION_INFO to resource file
1.16: Add WM_DWMCOLORIZATIONCOLORCHANGED command for redraw of icon colors
1.17: > Add support for substituting login time for Uptime
> Enable left-click on Uptime field to toggle uptime/login display
1.18: Add tooltips to Options dialog controls
1.19: Added support for 64-bit build (not currently used)
1.20: Add option to show/hide seconds on uptime/login field
1.21: > If RX Bytes/second is arbitrarily large (>20000), drop fractional
portion of value in display, so rates > 100MB/sec will be readable
> Add tooltips to main dialog
1.22: fixed - Windows could end up with logon entries which were later than current time.
This would result in invalid logon time being displayed.
Background on this program
I've always been a fan of small, low-profile system-status bars.
The first one I used was StatBar,
a configurable tool that displayed CPU Utilization, memory, and various
other common system parameters in an attractive, slim bar. It
mostly got along with other programs, though it would bleed through
into certain DirectX displays. Unfortunately, support for the
program vanished in 2005. When I finally got a computer with more
than 2GB of RAM, I discovered that 2GB was all that StatBar could
display. So a replacement was needed! I looked at WinBar,
which also looked nice, but it had exactly the same limitations as StatBar
(no support, 2GB memory limit). There were other programs that did
similar jobs (SysMetrix and RainMeter come to mind), but they were much
larger programs both in file sizes and screen sizes, and I wasn't
really happy with them.
Then I discovered Night Iguana's Infobar,
It is freeware, configurable, and looks really nice, and supports
>2GB RAM. I thought I'd found my perfect solution.
Unfortunately, it has a variety of quirks to it (mostly related
to DirectX interactions). These quirks can be largely avoided by
minimizing the program, but I never remember to do that before firing
up a game. Support for Infobar also eventually disappeared,
so I decided to write my own
My support guarantee
And so, DerBar
was born. I don't promise any better support than any of the
others, but the source code is available, and you can do what you wish
with it. My only request is that, if you distribute a modified
program, please change the name to something else to avoid confusion.
DerBar is written in C++,
using standard Win32 library calls, to improve compatibility.
It is built using the open source MinGW (Minimal Gnu for Windows) tools;
I recommend the TDM
distribution, to avoid certain issues with library accessibility.
and requires a couple of the common utilities from Cygwin as well (Gnu make, rm, etc).