Taskbar

So you've got Windows 7 installed and you log on for the first time, eagerly waiting for the "Preparing your desktop . . ." prompt to go away. The first user-interface change you'll notice with Windows 7 is the new, reworked Windows taskbar.

Over the years, the Windows taskbar evolved into the somewhat cluttered form that you might be familiar with from Windows Vista. The abundance of launch surfaces made it more difficult for users to navigate to their favorite programs, switch between applications, and access frequent destinations. The new taskbar reflects many years of user-interface design and usability testing, and it represents a revolution in the design of launch surfaces. It has never been so easy to navigate Windows and windows-the new user interface is simple, intuitive, fresh, and clean. Users will find it easier to launch their favorite applications, to switch between windows, to control applications that do not currently have focus, and to reach their recent documents-all of which are just a mouse click away.

In windows 7 tutorials I will show you the new features of the Windows 7 taskbar, as well as explain how to ensure your application takes advantage of every relevant piece of functionality. In next tutorials, "Integrate with the Windows 7 Taskbar: Basic Features," we show you how to use the new taskbar features that require relatively little effort on your part-providing a progress indicator through a taskbar button, showing an overlay icon that gives additional status information, and distinguishing windows and applications by assigning them separate taskbar buttons. Then next I will show you "Integrate with the Windows 7 Taskbar: Advanced Features," we discuss the more sophisticated features that users will come to expect from your application- thumbnail toolbars for remotely controlling a window from its taskbar thumbnail, jump lists for quickly accessing recent documents and frequent tasks, tools for completely customizing taskbar thumbnails, and tools for creating live window previews. All of these features combine to deliver a compelling experience to users of your applications.

Almost every application needs the new taskbar to truly shine on Windows 7. If you're writing a document-oriented application, you can give your users immediate access to their recent and frequent documents. If you're developing an application rich with media, you can give your users a thumbnail toolbar for quick access to media-oriented operations and live, vivid previews of your application from the taskbar button. If you're programming a utility that lurks in the background and pops up only once in a while, you might find that the best place for your application is on the Windows taskbar, where it can give users a live progress indicator and a status icon. Even if you're programming for the browser, one day you'll find that your users are eager to have your application out of the browser because they're enjoying the rich world of the Windows 7 taskbar.