A Useful Tool to Get an On Screen Volume Level Indicator
A lot of PC keyboards and a good number of laptops
will usually have a couple of hotkeys somewhere to control the system
volume, either by pressing an ‘Fn’ qualifier key and a number
key, or some extra added on buttons. You might even have a nice little
dial or slider to handle it for you. Sometimes there will be a function
in the provided driver or software that shows the volume level status in
a nice on-screen display. But if it isn’t available, you’re stuck with
the basic Windows volume control options using the icon in the system
tray. My Logitech keyboard has a dial and a mute button but nothing to
display this on the screen.
A neat little program called 3RVX
gives an on screen display of the volume level with a number of
different looking skins included. There are eight with the program, but
extra ones can be added. Not only that, but if your keyboard doesn’t
have its own dedicated buttons to control the volume, some hotkeys can
be configured for the up, down and mute functions as well as an optical
drive eject hotkey.
The installer is only about 2MB and will require Administrator privileges
to install. During idle use (not controlling volume), it uses around
1-3MB of memory which rises another 4 or 5 when the display is on
screen. The program does not start itself so it needs to be run first
time from the start menu where you will be asked to choose a language.
The default skin is a Mac type display (top left) and there will be a
volume icon similar to the Windows one in the tray. Unfortunately, the
default white icon will disappear if it goes in the hidden items box for
the tray icons, it’s still there, but white icon on white background.
Right clicking the tray icon or running the program from the start menu
will bring up the settings window where you can change the skin amongst
other things. Below are six of the default skins.
The ‘General’
settings tab has options for starting with Windows, playing a sound
when altering the level and running a custom sound mixer if you use one.
The ‘Display’ tab changes how long and where the
display shows on screen. You can change the fade delay and speed,
whether to hide the tray icon or the display when programs are in full
screen mode and the display position on screen. If you have multiple
monitors there is the option to choose which to use for the display.
The ‘Hotkey Setup‘ tab is already set up to a default of pressing the ‘Windows’ key and scrolling the mouse wheel to alter volume levels or clicking the middle mouse button to mute. Simply select the action to change and click the ‘Key combination’ button and hold down your own selection. Ctrl, Alt, Shift or the Windows keys can be used separately or in combinations with mouse actions or keyboard keys.
Sadly, at the time I write this, the developers site is ‘down for maintenance’
so no other skins are available from his site. 3RVX is a few years old
so I’m not entirely sure if it’s a temporary thing or not. But somewhere
like DevianArt has some for you to have a look at. Just extract the zip file and place the folder in the ‘Skins’ directory of the program.
Compatible with Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. Works fine for me on 64bit Win 7.The .NET framework 3.5 is required.
The Download is still available from authors ‘down for maintenance’ website.
Online Documentation
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