Windows 7 New Taskbar - An Overview

Posted By: Yochay Kiriaty | Jan 8th @ 9:26 AM | 64,913 Views | 18 Comments

Windows 7 offers a new way of controlling your desktop, managing your windows, and launching applications. The Windows 7 Taskbar is a new application-launching and window-switching mechanism that consolidates the functionalities from previous Windows OS Desktop mechanisms such as Quick Launch, Recent Documents, Notification area icons, desktop shortcuts, and running application windows.

Watch Yochay Kiriaty, Windows 7 Technical Evangelist, and Taskbar product team members Chaitanya Sareen, Trish Miner, Stephan Hoefnagels as we present the new Windows 7 Taskbar functionality and motivations. This video shows what is new in the Windows 7 desktop and taskbar, and the common user tasks and scenarios we are simplifying.

The Windows 7 Taskbar Overview is one of a series of Channel 9 videos about the new Windows 7 Taskbar. Other videos include:

1.       Designing the Windows 7 Taskbar

2.       Windows 7 Taskbar Behind the Scenes

3.       Jump in to Windows 7 Taskbar Jump Lists

4.       Windows 7 Taskbar Overview
   

For more technical information on the Windows 7 Taskbar, read the Windows 7 Taskbar Part 1 – The Basics post. For more technical content on Windows 7, along with a few cool code samples, go to the The Windows 7 Blog for Developers.

If you missed the PDC sessions on the Windows 7 Taskbar, you can always watch their videos: Welcome to Windows 7 Taskbar and Integrate with Windows 7 Taskbar – but I know you already saw them few times. Wink
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#Jan 8th @ 10:09 AM
aL_
aL_
Rx ftw

the new taskbar and win7 in general is pretty awsome i gotta say..
there are some things i miss though
there isnt any indication of what host window a tab lives in :/ its not a huge deal but in an app like vs one might have several instances with the same file name (but diffrent branches for example) its a problem, albeit not a huge one.. (peek help with this issue)
a grouping feature cold also have been used for tab groups in ie..

what im saying i guess is that it whould be cool if windows that are collapsed together in the taskbar could be grouped further in an app specific way Smiley is that possible somehow?

#Jan 8th @ 11:23 AM
Rhapsody
Rhapsody
In Metal We Trust
Great video and very nice to see these new features.

ps. It's funny to see a group of people without any 'TV' experience. Tongue Out
#Jan 8th @ 11:30 AM
Yochay
Yochay

Hi big Al,
To answer you last question, yes. You can control the way you group different windows in to one glom or several gloms. Watch the    Jump in to Windows 7 Taskbar Jump Lists for more information and examples.

And thanks for the feedback.

#Jan 8th @ 12:06 PM
aL_
aL_
Rx ftw
yeah i say that one Smiley its good but i meant grouping with in a single glom Smiley (a glom is a task bar "button" right?) the ability control the number of gloms yourself is great but ie doesnt do that :/ (thats an ie thing though) it wouls have been nice to be able to control the default behaviour though, like decidning that app A is going to have gloms for each instance and app B is only going to have one glom and app C can decide for it self Smiley

you wouldnt happen to know if the ie team are thinking about giving users more control over the gloms?


--edit--
oh wait, i thought you linked to the pdc session Smiley i'll watch the video  you actually linked too, thanks Smiley

--edit2--

ok ive watched it now Smiley good stuff, i still wonder if there is any way to control those general heuristics for generating appIDs though.. i'd imagine you could do something with shortcuts but i'll poke around a bit more once i get 7 installed on my home box.. im greatful for any extar info you have though Smiley
#Jan 8th @ 12:35 PM
Bas
Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

About the drag/dropping of icons in notification areas.. what if I want an icon to show up only when it has a certain appearance? For instance, on my Vista laptop right now, I have the LAN icon set to hidden except when there is an actual connection. Likewise, I'd like to set up the WHS Connector icon to only show up when my network is critical (and the icon is red). I can do that in Vista right now, because it allows you to show/hide stuff based on the appearance of the icon. How would I do that in 7?

#Jan 8th @ 1:15 PM
channel9celebrity
channel9celebrity
It's very nice to see that the user can now arrange taskbar buttons by dragging them around. I REALLY hope that the same will be true for the popup preview windows that display the application's various windows. This is because it allows the user to arrange the internal order of windows inside the popup thereby saving time when using the same windows to type different things in.

Example:

You may have different powershell instances launched but the first one is pointed at c: and the second one is pointed at c:\program files\. If you, the third one pointed at something else. By allowing the user to control the order of the 'preview' windows inside the popup, you save time when trying to do repetitive tasks that require frequent window switching... User in control!
#Jan 8th @ 1:35 PM
rjdohnert
rjdohnert
You will never know success until you know failure
Personally, I like Windows 7.  It screams on an older machine I have so I do think Microsoft has gotten it right.  Will I use it outside of beta?  Probably not.
#Jan 8th @ 2:40 PM
Kryptos
Kryptos
Backup People!

Charles - Why Not?

Cost?

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