[M.Sudoku]

Update: Rafael has made a discovery that the new taskbar can be enabled in the pre-beta build (6801).

At PDC 2008, Microsoft took the wraps off Windows 7 and showcased its new dock-like Taskbar. But the revamped Taskbar isn't in the pre-beta build distributed to attendees. The first time consumers and developers will gain access to the new UI is early 2009, when Windows 7 Beta 1 ships.

Some facts

• Quick Launch is officially dead. Microsoft will be leaving the Quick Launch folder in Windows 7 for backwards compatibility, but any shortcuts stored there will never show up.
  
  
• Jump Lists are accessed by right-clicking an application's Taskbar icon or via dragging. Jump Lists are broken into two areas: destinations and tasks, and are fully customizable by the developer.
  
  
• Deskbands (like an address bar in the Taskbar) still exist in Windows 7, but must also support rendering on the transparent Glass UI.
  
  
• The new Taskbar essentially has Quick Launch integrated into it. Applications can be pinned to the Taskbar so the icon never moves.
  
  
• Another major new feature in the Windows 7 Taskbar is the "Thumbnail Toolbar" -- a remote-control for a window.
  
  
• Applications not pinned to the Taskbar will appear on the right side when opened, and disappear from the Taskbar when closed.
  
  
• Like the taskbar grouping introduced in Windows XP, each application only has one icon. Hovering over the application in the Taskbar pops up a display that shows thumbnails of the app's opened windows.
  
  
• Show Desktop will still exist in the Windows 7 Taskbar, but the button has been moved to a small space on the very right side of the screen that is not labeled.
  
  
• Windows 7 Taskbar includes a task switcher that exposes thumbnails of documents for switching between windows.

If you like text in your taskbar, labels can be enabled for taskbar items in the “taskbar properties” panel. Text however will only appear for active applications.


The way the taskbar handles overflow (in this build) is still the same way it is in Windows Vista - with a scroll. They did say however this is one feature they are looking into addressing which may or may not change.


The size of the new “superbar” is actually not much larger than the Vista taskbar, 10 pixels to be exact. Enabling smaller icons will reduce this to the traditional taskbar size.


Ungrouping the button which separates the individual windows will still retain its “groupness” by applications. Thus by dragging one window will actually move the entire group of windows, for example, Office Word.


This is how the progress bar looks on the new taskbar which comes with the new API that developers can tap into for display progress right in the taskbar.


This is how the taskbar looks on top of the screen.


With Aero Classic visual style.


If you open the jump list with a lot of instances of the same application, it will display just one row of thumbnails before switching to a text-only list.


Here it is with only one row of thumbnails. Aero Peek is also featured where the selected instance is shown where the other windows are all transparent.

Source: betanews and istartedsomething

More Windows 7 taskbar screenshots:



















Screenshots are from Long Zheng's photostream.

This post has been edited by M.Sudoku: 03 November 2008 - 08:49 AM

[arkanbh]

anyone here agree that the best pictures of windows, was the windowslonghorn?

I tested the windows7 but not found much in the visual styles....

but nice news....

[Syzygy]

Is it a good idea to use Win7 Online?...

[kyosan]

Look cool Version 6801 don't have superbar like this

[deadman36g]

Hopefully there will be an option to make it smaller (in height). The Vista taskbar takes up enough screen space and this is double the size, and I am not a huge fan of autohide hwen it comes to the taskbar.

[Preath]

Incredibly awesome improvement for Windows! =)

Hope they get in mind of more features too instead of removing them

[SharmanNet]

Windows 7 taskbar is only 10 pixel larger than Vista's taskbar. When you enable small icons it'll reduce the size.

[CommonSense]

What's with all the boxes in the 9th picture? They're like transparent. What the hell are they?

[InlineSkate]

CommonSense, on Nov 1 2008, 08:56 AM, said:

What's with all the boxes in the 9th picture? They're like transparent. What the hell are they?

Wasn't understanding that feature either

[AMIRZ]

Wow very informative thread + many screenshots! Thx alot for this

[ascendant]

CommonSense, on Nov 1 2008, 05:56 AM, said:

What's with all the boxes in the 9th picture? They're like transparent. What the hell are they?

it's a feature where only the window in focus is actually visible making all the others transparent

[endrit10]

Very nice screens.

Can't wait to test Beta 1!

This post has been edited by endrit10: 01 November 2008 - 02:53 PM

[Secured Tim]

Superbar rocks!

[Borix]

Love the superbar too: best of both worlds (Pc and MAC).

Love the flat glass look aswell.

Hope they keep it clean an tidy

This post has been edited by Borix: 05 November 2008 - 02:47 PM

[Freka]

Windows 7 looks promising, can't wait for the public beta.

This post has been edited by Freka: 05 November 2008 - 11:16 PM