A Close Look At The New Windows 7 Taskbar
Microsoft introduced some fundamental design changes in the Windows 7 presentation today. This article will take a closer look at what Microsoft has shown. One of the most talked new features is the new Windows 7 Taskbar. We already talked about the increase in size but Microsoft has revealed some interesting information about the taskbar today. If you look at a picture of the Windows 7 Taskbar you notice that it is displaying icons and no names which is a different approach than before. Each icon still represents an application, file or folder that has been opened. It is possible to change the order of each icon in the taskbar which was one of the most requested features for it. It is even possible to pin applications at a certain position in the taskbar so that they will always be available in the same spot.
The screenshot above is a closeup of the Windows 7 Taskbar as it is implemented in the latest build. Previews of each item of the taskbar are now available by simply hoovering over one. Even more interesting is the ability to display not only the current active window of the application but also other open tabs of it. An Internet Explorer preview would for instance display the open tabs of the browser while a Word preview all open documents. It is likely that there will be a maximum of preview windows that can be displayed at a time. The user can load a window or application by simply moving the mouse over the preview icon. It should be noted that it is now possible to place programs permanently into the Windows Taskbar which was was only possible in the Quick Launch area in previous Windows versions. Open applications and folders are visualized by a border which makes it easy to distinguish between open and closed programs. Multiple open windows will be visualized by icon stacks. The size of the taskbar icons can be altered to provide space for more icons or less but bigger ones.
A right-click on an icon in the Windows 7 Taskbar will open so called Jump Lists. This is another interesting new feature. Jump Lists provide access to the last used files, documents or website history. It can also contain the most common tasks like playing all music tracks or resuming a playlist. A user could use it to open an Excel spreadsheet that he opened previously to continue working on it.
The Windows 7 System Tray has been redesigned as well. A design focus was to design it in a way that it would add less interruption to the user’s workflow. After installation only four icons are displayed in the Windows 7 System Tray: Volume, Power, Network and Action Center. Icons of applications that install a system tray icon will be hidden by default and notifications suppressed which obviously can be changed in the options. Hidden meaning that they can be accessed from the Caret. A right-click provides access to the Customize Notification Icons panel. The user can change the status of any icon in the system tray in the options there.
Date and time can still be configured after the users liking. Versions with both the time and date in two rows and only the time are possible. The far right contains a new feature called Peek. If the user moves the mouse over that panel all open windows become transparent making the desktop shine through. A click on it will show the desktop. Aero Peek comes also in effect when hoovering the mouse over preview windows of the Windows 7 Taskbar. If the user moves the mouse over a preview window all other open windows will turn to glass which means that only the window the user is looking at will come to his attention.
Microsoft added options to customize the Windows Taskbar. Users will be able to change the color of the Windows Taskbar and the transparency levels of the taskbar and the preview windows.
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[...] A Close Look At The New Windows 7 Taskbar [...]
To me the taskbar picture above slightly resembles the look of a Linux distribution using the KDE interface. The features of it are also things I’ve been able to do with Linux for as long as I’ve been using it.
I agree with the previous post that says it looks like the KDE interface. I just hope they keep an option around to turn the text labels on/off and give us the ability to resize the taskbar. I would like the ability to make it smaller so it doesn’t take up as much screen real estate
I agree with the previous post that says it looks like the KDE interface. I just hope they keep an option around to turn the text labels on/off and give us the ability to resize the taskbar. I would like the ability to make it smaller so it doesn’t take up as much screen real estate.
One thing that I’m really sorry about is that it is still not possible to move the Start button in the Windows Taskbar. I usually have the Taskbar hidden on the left side of the screen and it does not make much sense that the Start button is on top of the screen and not on the bottom.
[...] dynamic items that can now be placed in it. Check out the article at Windows 7 News for a complete Windows 7 Taskbar rundown. One aspect that Microsoft left unchanged is the position of the Start button which still [...]
>”It is possible to change the order of each icon in the taskbar which was one of the most requested features for it.”
Can’t believe it’s taken Microsoft so long to implement this obvious requirement. Do they really listen to what people want?
You can already get this facility, at least on XP, by downloading at neat little utility, Taskbar Shuffle from
http://www.freewebs.com/nerdcave/taskbarshuffle.htm
Recommended.
hmmm…
I hate the task bar, I downloaded the rocket luncher which turnes the taskbar into the apple mac dock, apps that I need is just there,
for example why do i need windows media player? If I clik on a MP3 song its gonna open that anyhow, right?
I wish they would do something about back up, like factory defualt back up disck software! cuz what if  loos the windows dvd? have u ever had that problem?
there would be one thing that windows 7 would kick ass compae to mc osx, and thats native tuch support for apps, mac is meant for music production, graphic design, becuase of its file format system, for instance ableton live is for windows and mac,( music production software)
1: native tuch for apps would make music production on windows 5 times faster!
2: you can find more piret software for windows than mac
after all windows is only gaming and web designing platform,
which mac is not, and linux is more programing platform,
Now if you are simple home user you can do the same with windows mac or linux!!!!!
Yeah I’m really liking the look of this new taskbar, I’ve always found the taskbar to be a bit obtrusive, however the new taskbar seems to blend in far better with the rest of the OS as oppose to other Windows OS’s. All in all a job well done.