Preview : Windows 7: Desktop & Taskbar Enhancements

In this second part of the series, we look at the some of the exciting enhancements made in the desktop and taskbar

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

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Windows 7 makes some exciting and very large leaps in changing some of the things that most computer users have been used to since the Windows 95 days – and for the better. The new Taskbar itself has enough number of new features that allow for not just better productivity but also make using Windows more cooler than ever before. So let's delve into some of these in this pictorial review.

The TaskBar
One of the biggest changes (visually) that you will notice once you login to Windows is the new appearance of the TaskBar. Not only is it slightly taller than before but is also more “glassy”. It also contains a completely new way of working with applications and icons.

Application icons
Till Windows Vista, icons on the taskbar could do or represent the following: on the “Quick Launch” bar, the icons would launch the application and create a new task button on the rest of the taskbar. On the taskbar an icon (and associated text) would represent a running application and its windows. In Windows 7 however, these distinctions are done away with. The Quick Launch bar no longer exists. Instead the icons that exist on the taskbar represent both icons to launch an application as well as the running applications themselves. This means that on launching an application from the icon on the taskbar, there is no new task button created. Instead, the icon itself turns into the task button that you can click to switch to the running instance. It may sound confusing at first and might take you a day or two to get used to the idea. Stick with it for the day and you'll realize that this is how it should have always been, with the added advantage of getting tons of free taskbar real estate for other running apps' buttons.
But this is not the only change that's happened. The running and non-running app icons are differentiated by a subtle glass border. Apps with more than one windows or tab open (for instance IE or Word), show that with multiple glass “slabs” representing multiple windows. Running apps are also differentiated upon when you mouse over the icons. A color sensitive glow tracks the mouse as it passes over the icon when the app is running making it very clear which is a running app and which is (for now) a launch icon.

The new taskbar shows both launch icons and running apps (icons with a border). Multiple windows or tabs are represented by multiple glass slabs.	The Notification area shows a small arrow, 4 icons, the date & time and the Desktop Preview glass slab.

Thumbnail previews
Thumbnail previews of running apps are also very much enhanced. Each window or tab gets its own live preview and you can perform a variety of tasks within the preview itself without actually switching to the actual application. For instance, you can use a new feature called “Aero Peek” to quickly “peek” at another running application's window without actually losing your place in the current application by simply hovering for a second over the other app's thumbnail preview. All other open windows become completely transparent allowing you to take a quick look at that other window. Mouse out of the thumbnail and your current window appears where it was. Another thing that thumbnails allow you to now do is close the window or even control the application – for instance, the thumbnail preview of Windows Media Player allows to stop, pause, skip previous or next and play media – all without having to open the full interface.

You can rearrange icons by dragging them. Also notice the colored mouse hot tracking effect on the Outlook icon.

Jump Lists
Another new feature in the icons (both running and launch) on the taskbar is called “Jump Lists”. These are application specific features that you can use directly. For instance, the Jump List for Windows Explorer can show you recently visited folders as well as “Pinned” or “Favorite” folders. The Jump List for IE or Word can show you the MRU for each. The list for MSN Messenger shows tasks like “Go to Inbox”, “Start a conversation”, “Sign in as (Available|Busy|...)” and more. This allows the user to quickly jump directly to the task or location he wants to instead of first launching the application and then navigating to the item one wants. The side effect of this is that the Start Menu no longer has a Recent Items list – this is now taken over by each application's individual list and opening a document is as simple as launching an application.

Hovering on a thumbnail preview of an app quickly lets you peek at that window by making all other windows transparent.	Thumbnail previews allow previewing, switching and in some cases even controlling the app like in the WMP preview where you can control the media being played right from the preview window itself.

Notification Area
The Taskbar also contains the Notification Area on the right side – something that has been abused by application developers by installing all sorts of icons in this area. In Windows 7, this clutter is done away with by showing only a maximum of 4 icons in the area + the date and time. The four icons are:

Jump Lists let you interact with the app quickly. For instance, the Explorer list shows your recent and favorite folders. The MSN Messenger one lets you do IM tasks and Word list shows you recent items.	Jump Lists also replace the Recent items list in the Start Menu for each app now.

• Action Center: This lets you see any system generated popup message rather than individual pop ups from different applications or services.
• Battery/Power: Which allows you to control the power/battery settings.
• Network: To see the wired/wireless network status.
• Volume: To control the volume of speakers.
• Apart from this, a small arrow lets you see all other icons that are installed and to access them normally. You also get a small glass slab at the extreme right that performs a “Show Desktop” action – quickly makes all windows transparent to allow you to see the desktop and any gadgets on it.

  Clicking the arrow in the notification area displays the hidden icons.

The Desktop
The desktop too has had some changes done in Windows 7. As in Vista, you start off with a clean desktop only containing the Recycle bin. The Windows SideBar application does not startup on login – in fact it no longer even exists. Instead you can now put gadgets directly on your desktop itself. The long startup time people complained about in Vista due to the Sidebar no longer occurs. And most Vista gadgets work with Windows 7 as well.

Applications running on the desktop also get a new set of features. You can drag the title bar of any application to the top of the screen to automatically maximize it and to the left or right side to tile it to the dragged side.

A new Themes section for personalization allows you to create and save your transparency, sounds, backgrounds and screensaver settings. And you finally get an option to rotate your desktop backgrounds amongst images you select in a defined schedule.
The desktop has also been enhanced to take advantage of high resolution screens and multiple displays. I'm running Windows 7 on my 17” notebook at a resolution of 1920x1200 and things look much crisper than before. ClearType and other sub-pixel rendering enhancements for text and graphics make the screen very crisper.

Overall Windows 7 gives a whole new set of stuff in both the Desktop and Taskbar that not only makes working with applications, documents and tasks much easier but also makes it look cool and flashy. This surely makes for a highly recommended upgrade to the Windows OS.

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