How to make a floating toolbar or palette in MIDI Glass

Windows MIDI Glass (“MIDI Glass”) is the Windows MIDI Services app for building your own touch control surface. Most layouts fill a window or the whole screen. A floating toolbar is different: it’s a small strip of buttons that sits over another app, the way the tool strip in a drawing app does. A floating palette is the same idea in a square.

They’re handy when you want a few buttons over your DAW, a video app, or a live set, and you don’t want to give up the screen to get them.

MIDI Glass is a preview app. Names and settings in this article can change before it ships.

On this page:

• What makes a layout float
• Start from a toolbar or a palette
• Turn a layout you already have into a toolbar
• Using a floating toolbar
• Tips

What makes a layout float

Three settings do it. They’re on the layout’s Behavior page, under Runtime window:

The three settings are separate, so you can use any mix of them. For example, Always on top on its own keeps a normal layout window in front of your other apps.

These settings take effect the next time the layout runs. While it’s running, you can still turn Always on top on or off for that one session.

Start from a toolbar or a palette

The quickest way to get one is to start from one:

1. In the MIDI Glass library, select New layout.
2. Give it a name, and under Send to pick the device the buttons should play.
3. Under Template, pick one of these:
   • Horizontal toolbar: eight buttons in a row, on a page 800 × 120 pixels.
   • Vertical toolbar: eight buttons in a column, on a page 120 × 800 pixels.
   • Floating palette: sixteen buttons in a four by four square, on a page 360 × 360 pixels.
4. Select Create. The layout opens in the editor.

All three start with the three floating settings turned on and use the Bone theme, whose buttons are easy to read on their own.

Each button plays a note, starting at note 36 (C1) on channel 1 and counting up. A button sends a note on when you press it and a note off when you let go. Those are two rows in the button’s Action list on the Sends tab: one with the trigger On, and one with Off. If you change the note, the channel, or the device, change it on both rows. Otherwise the note off goes somewhere else, and the note keeps playing.

Turn a layout you already have into a toolbar

1. Open the layout in the editor.
2. Open the Layout… menu and select Page size…. Under Preset, pick Horizontal toolbar, Vertical toolbar, or Floating palette, or type your own width and height. A page can be as small as 32 pixels on a side.
3. Move your controls onto the smaller page.
4. Open the Layout… menu and select Theme and colors…. Then select Behavior in the list on the left.
5. Under Runtime window, turn on the settings you want.
6. Open the Layout… menu and select Save and run.

Using a floating toolbar

A floating toolbar has one piece of window chrome: a thin handle with a move mark and three dots. It’s at the left end of the toolbar, or at the top if the toolbar is taller than it is wide.

• To move the toolbar, drag the handle.
• To open the toolbar menu, click or right-click the handle. With the keyboard, press Tab until the handle has focus, then press Enter.

The menu has:

Tips

• Keep the page small. You can see through the empty parts of a see-through page, but they still belong to the toolbar. A click there doesn’t reach the app underneath. So a page that’s just big enough for its buttons covers the least.
• Pick a theme for the buttons, not the background. A see-through window doesn’t draw the page’s background, so only the controls show. Choose a theme whose controls stand out over the apps you’ll use it with.
• It doesn’t have to be buttons. A toolbar can hold knobs, faders, or anything else MIDI Glass has. The starters use buttons because they fit a strip best.
• A transparent background works in a normal window too. If you leave Toolbar window off, the title bar and the row of buttons above the page stay solid so you can still grab the window. Only the page is see-through.