In an ideal world, you’d never need a program like Panic Button Pro.
Of course, the world isn’t ideal and there are times when you need to stop things happening on your computer instantly.
Sure, Windows has an option to “show desktop” and minimize all your programs and browsers to the system tray.
So what makes Panic Button Pro better?
When you first start the program, you’re offered a configuration screen:
But that’s all it does. Panic Button Pro goes a lot further than this and could be worth its weight in gold…
This is where you can:
- Set a password so that only you can change the settings on the program
- Always start the program when Windows starts – helpful, otherwise you can guarantee that when you most need to use Panic Button Pro it won’t be running
- Assign a hot key to the program so that when you press a key or combination of keys of your choice, the program will either pop to the top of your screen or hide itself. It’s really easy to set the hot key – you just click your mouse in the hot key box and press whichever key(s) you want to assign. You’ll get confirmation of these on screen.
- Whether or not you want the program to start “hidden” – you’ll probably choose this, otherwise some people would doubtless ask you what the icon means.
- Whether or not to keep a log file of what the program has done.
The next step is to manage hot key profiles. You can create as many of these different profiles as you like.
For instance, I set up a profile so that I can mute the sound on my PC when I press the F11 key. I often work with music playing in the background and being able to press a key to mute the music when the phone rings is great. It’s a lot quicker than hunting for the Windows Media Player icon, opening the program and then clicking the pause button.
Another option is to hide selected windows. Rather than the “all or nothing” option provided by the built-in Windows clear desktop option.
This is handy in all sorts of situations.
You can doubtless think of occasions when you’d rather other people didn’t see what you were browsing. Sports scores at work maybe? Or searching for a gift for your significant other? Or writing a report about someone’s performance that you’d rather was for your eyes only. Not to mention the occasional screen that you’d prefer your children didn’t catch you browsing.
You can choose as many or as few programs as you want, so you can have a selection of different hot keys to perform different duties for you.
The “enter conditions manually” option gives you even more flexibility depending on what’s in the title bar of the relevant windows.
You can also import and export your Panic Button Pro profiles, so you could use the same profile on your desktop PC and your laptop if you wanted.
Verdict
As I mentioned at the start, Panic Button Pro is the kind of program that in theory you don’t need. But in practice, it comes in very handy.
It’s easy to set up and easy to use. The most complicated part is remembering the hot keys you’ve set up for the different actions you’ve chosen.
It’s available for immediate download and comes with a one month money back guarantee.