AlwaysOnTopper

With monitors increasing in size, resolution and pixel density, many PC users try to find new ways of maximizing their newfound screen real estate by making custom app grid templates for a superior multitasking experience. However, when traveling, most people seek to minimize their luggage weight, thus resorting to compact notebook laptops and hybrid tablets for a more pocket-able form factor. As such, those who need to keep an eye on instant messaging clients or wish to maintain awareness of an important reminder when interacting with full-screen apps can try out a dedicated utility known as AlwaysOnTopper.

Unlike other commercial-grade programs, the app at hand foregoes the need for a graphical interface, thus sparing users from unnecessary menus and sections that turn into bloatware in future updates. Instead, running the executable starts up the background process responsible for injecting an extra item to the right-click context menu that appears when selecting the title bar of any program, which ultimately forces the currently active app to stay on top of any other games or utilities found in the background.

As a result, note-taking apps without notification support or sticky-note functionality can gain an optional overlay mode that lets users stay mindful of any important upcoming events or tasks that require completion in a certain time frame without resorting to potentially data-hungry third-party alternatives to do so. Players who stream their gameplay content online using a single large monitor can pin the browser window on top for quickly accessing video controls and previewing the live camera footage, thus making the most of the available screen space without running both apps side-by-side.

Moreover, while the program works well in its current form, users who want to keep it active in the background at all times must manually set it to start on boot, a situation that could be avoided if the app included a dedicated system tray icon. However, given its open-source license, those with programming experience can fork the available code and create their own variants with support for such features, if necessary.

Whether you want to stay aware of a background activity such as a video rendering or file downloading, or you want to have a video call session’s controls available while playing games in full-screen mode without minimizing windows, AlwaysOnTopper may be the right tool for the job, given its minimalist and non-intrusive interaction pattern.