Ping Monitor suggestion: System tray notifications

Hey there,

Many thanks for your awesome Ping Monitor tool! It offers more features than many other commercial tools provide. Because of this I almost feel guilty to ask for more, and would also say that I'm happy to pay for the "pro" features.

The main reason I began using Ping Monitor is that the internet connection when I work from home (and due to unstable Cisco software even in our office) is not very reliable. So I wanted to be alerted when the connection goes down, which your tool does. But because of the way Windows OS is designed, I sometimes miss the notification (which isn't unfortunately a system notification) due to windows overload.

Long story short: it would be cool to see the ping status in the system tray, either by selecting the "primary" ping target and changing the icon to red/orange/green, or by showing multiple icons for all ping targets, like task manager does for CPUs.

But even if you don't implement this because you need to focus on other things to make a living: Many thanks for the great tool!

Thank you so much for the kind words about Ping Monitor — it's really nice to hear that it's been useful to you. And please don't feel guilty about asking for more. We love constructive feedback like yours.

You are absolutely right that a missed notification on a busy Windows desktop defeats the purpose of having one in the first place. This is something we were mulling over, and came up with an even better solution than a tray icon: a taskbar widget that sits directly on the Windows taskbar rather than in the system tray, shows all monitored hosts at a glance, has more room for displaying meaningful information than a 16x16 tray icon, and is impossible to miss.
To enjoy this new feature, simply download the latest Ping Monitor version. Once installed, right-click the tray icon (or open the View menu), and enable Taskbar Widget.
For more details on the widget you can check the Taskbar widget user manual page.

Also thank you for offering to pay, that's genuinely appreciated. We would like to keep Ping Monitor free, but if you wish to support us, please have a look at our paid tools — you might find something useful amongst them as well.

I am super happy with the new version!

But because you've asked, some additional feedback:

1. I love that I'm able to select the screen on which the widget should appear. I assumed it would always appear on the "main" monitor with all the taskbar icons.

2. I'm not sure if I understand the Anchor left/right option. It doesn't do anything for me. It's always anchored right, i.e. sits at the right end of the taskbar close to the close or the other icons.

3. The space for the server names is a bit small. I only see 1 or at most 3 characters. It would be good to increase it slightly or to make it configurable.

Anyway, as said I'm super happy and don't want to be pushy.

Glad to hear it's working well for you, and thanks for the detailed feedback.

On the points you raised:

The issue with Anchor Left/Anchor Right was due to a minor bug. On Windows 11 the Start button can sit either in the centre or at the left of the taskbar. When it's left-aligned (as on your machine) there's simply no room on the left for the widget, so "Anchor Left" does nothing and should have been disabled. We've just fixed that: it will be greyed out automatically when the Start button is left-aligned. For centered taskbars (Windows Settings > Personalisation > Taskbar > Taskbar behaviours > Taskbar alignment > Centre) both options will be available.

Regarding widget width, there is a resize grip on the widget already, you may have missed it. Hover the mouse over the left edge (or the right edge, depending on which side it's anchored to) and the highlight will change to a vertical strip. Drag it to whatever width suits you.

Thanks again for helping us improve the app!