Win7: Taskbar size scalability

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rush24t3

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I've sent this in as feedback to MS, but thought I'd get some input here.

The only thing bugging me about 7 right now is the lack of scalability of the taskbar. It's either big honking icons or super-tiny ones. Might MS add in a percentage scaler or the like so we can shrink the taskbar down a bit under the default giganto-icons?
 
Worse yet, when you go to small icons, it uses the same spacing as large icons, gaining you zero in taskbar space.

What is it with Microsoft and hard-coded, locked down interfaces? First it was IE7. Then it was Office 2007. Now, it's Windows 7.

Are they just to lazy to add the ability for customers to modify this stuff?
 
Oh, and I wold prefer that all 'active' icons be re-ordered together instead of scattered amongst the icon list as they are now. It takes too long to find things.
 
TechLarry said:
Worse yet, when you go to small icons, it uses the same spacing as large icons, gaining you zero in taskbar space.

What is it with Microsoft and hard-coded, locked down interfaces? First it was IE7. Then it was Office 2007. Now, it's Windows 7.

Are they just to lazy to add the ability for customers to modify this stuff?
Click to expand...

Huh? When you use small icons the items in the taskbar take less space, you do gain realestate.

As for the lack of Windows customizability, its got nothing to do with being lazy, its about added support and complexity. The more Microsoft puts this stuff in the core OS, the more support calls somebody is going to get.

Windows has never been about the flashiest or sexiest UI though Microsoft is having to more down that route to compete with the Mac and Linux as they have had better looking and more interesting UI's for sometime in a lot of respects though Windows 7 has I think a very crisp and good looking UI though still not flashy.
 
As for the lack of Windows customizability, its got nothing to do with being lazy, its about added support and complexity. The more Microsoft puts this stuff in the core OS, the more support calls somebody is going to get.
Click to expand...
This. Every bit of customizability is hundreds/thousands more hours of testing, more use cases, more edge cases, more MS support calls, more support calls at other IT departments......it's painful.

And then there's perf. Scaling graphics is CPU-intensive. Caching them is memory-intensive. And a lot of things don't scale well. So, no, scaling isn't a magical fix.
 
I think what TechLarry means is when he changes to Small Icons on the Taskbar, he would prefer that the Taskbar itself shrink in terms of height (if it's at the top or bottom of the screen) or width (if it's on the sides), which it doesn't do. The icons change to smaller ones, yes, but the "button" remains the same, so I get that point. I keep the Taskbar on the left side of the screen, and it's not an issue for me personally.

As for Microsoft's adding the ability to modify it, the majority of people responding to questionnaires that helped create the interface in the first place want it the way it is - and the majority rules sooo... :D
 
I think what TechLarry means is when he changes to Small Icons on the Taskbar, he would prefer that the Taskbar itself shrink in terms of height (if it's at the top or bottom of the screen) or width (if it's on the sides), which it doesn't do. The icons change to smaller ones, yes, but the "button" remains the same, so I get that point. I keep the Taskbar on the left side of the screen, and it's not an issue for me personally
Click to expand...
It becomes the exact same as in Vista. Button stuck out there too.
 
I just customize task bar and choose not to group icons .. makes the bars on the taskbar back like the old days and it looks great. I can't wait for this OS to be ready for the main stream and be on the shelf.
 
TechLarry said:
Worse yet, when you go to small icons, it uses the same spacing as large icons, gaining you zero in taskbar space.

What is it with Microsoft and hard-coded, locked down interfaces? First it was IE7. Then it was Office 2007. Now, it's Windows 7.

Are they just to lazy to add the ability for customers to modify this stuff?
Click to expand...

I think it has to do with the 7's. They're feeling lucky :D.

I think they might wanna keep customizability on lock-down just to minimize the risk of some noob totally screwing up his UI to no return. Perhaps it may also help prevent an attacker from totally screwing up other peoples' UI too.
 
Arainach said:
This. Every bit of customizability is hundreds/thousands more hours of testing, more use cases, more edge cases, more MS support calls, more support calls at other IT departments......it's painful.

And then there's perf. Scaling graphics is CPU-intensive. Caching them is memory-intensive. And a lot of things don't scale well. So, no, scaling isn't a magical fix.
Click to expand...

But the Linux and OS X guys manage it...why can't Microsoft? It's sort of an obvious thing to have.

In terms of performance, the Win7 UI itself is GPU-accelerated, so GPU scaling is the answer, with a negligible performance hit.
 
In terms of performance, the Win7 UI itself is GPU-accelerated, so GPU scaling is the answer, with a negligible performance hit.
Click to expand...
No, it's not. Don't forget that there's Aero Basic mode. Also, neither Linux or OS X are as well-tested and established as Windows. PARTICULARLY Linux.
 
How exactly is this efficient use of space?

Capture.png


There is room for twice as many icons, but you can't change the spacing (that I've found).

heatlesssun said:
Huh? When you use small icons the items in the taskbar take less space, you do gain realestate.

As for the lack of Windows customizability, its got nothing to do with being lazy, its about added support and complexity. The more Microsoft puts this stuff in the core OS, the more support calls somebody is going to get.

Windows has never been about the flashiest or sexiest UI though Microsoft is having to more down that route to compete with the Mac and Linux as they have had better looking and more interesting UI's for sometime in a lot of respects though Windows 7 has I think a very crisp and good looking UI though still not flashy.
Click to expand...
 
havent gotten to try it for myself yet, but that just looks like standard bar behavior to me. ie the icons are evenly spaced. if you add more items to the bar do they not get closer together?
 
jkr266 said:
havent gotten to try it for myself yet, but that just looks like standard bar behavior to me. ie the icons are evenly spaced. if you add more items to the bar do they not get closer together?
Click to expand...

No, they don't. Since I run my taskbar / superbar on the left side of the screen, it's even worse for me as they are aligned in the middle of the task bar and they take up just as much space horizontally as they do vertically. (not at home, so no screenshots right now).
 
In general I like the new taskbar, but I agree...there should be a way to pack icons closer together. I re-enabled the old quicklaunch, but I could live without it if I had to. I have 7-8 things that I like to have ready to launch on the taskbar, and that just takes too darn much space on the new bar.

You might try turning off text labels to save some space with running apps.

TechLarry said:
How exactly is this efficient use of space?

Capture.png


There is room for twice as many icons, but you can't change the spacing (that I've found).
Click to expand...
 
bmg said:
In general I like the new taskbar, but I agree...there should be a way to pack icons closer together. I re-enabled the old quicklaunch, but I could live without it if I had to. I have 7-8 things that I like to have ready to launch on the taskbar, and that just takes too darn much space on the new bar.

You might try turning off text labels to save some space with running apps.
Click to expand...

Did you use the registry hack to get the quick launch back? I have probably 15-20 apps I run on a regular basis, and I really miss the quick launch bar. I have tried to use the start menu to hold them all but it just isn't as "quick" as the quick launch was.

It took me until this week to "figure out" in my head that the pinned apps on the super bar shouldn't be used like a quick launch, but more like application tabs that are pre-positioned. I've considered not pinning any apps to the superbar, and not grouping them, so that it behaves more like I'm used to, then using something like Object Dock to launch apps.
 
TechLarry said:
There is room for twice as many icons, but you can't change the spacing (that I've found).
Click to expand...
No, there's not. You still need spacing for indicators of when windows are open, when multiple windows are open, etc. "cram as much in as possible" is a hideous design philosophy.
 
Arainach said:
No, there's not. You still need spacing for indicators of when windows are open, when multiple windows are open, etc.
Click to expand...

Although that is true, you don't need THAT much space to indicate which windows/programs are open and what not. I don't like my icons that small on the taskbar, but the amount of space between them, when you make them smaller is a bit much.
 
There also need to be considerations for touch screens, as jamming the icons right next to each other would make it more difficult to put your finger on the icon you want (literally). So with that, and the multiple buttons being in each space, yes the icons need to be a bit apart.

I believe one of the old Windows 7 engineering blogs mentioned something about the spacing.
 
SuperSubZero said:
There also need to be considerations for touch screens, as jamming the icons right next to each other would make it more difficult to put your finger on the icon you want (literally). So with that, and the multiple buttons being in each space, yes the icons need to be a bit apart.

I believe one of the old Windows 7 engineering blogs mentioned something about the spacing.
Click to expand...

See, I just knew someone would remember that article. :)

The complainers approach this stuff from the "Oh I don't know why they did this because I don't like it/it sucks/change it back" and they simply cannot see it from any other perspective, whereas Microsoft when designing this OS (and all their products) has more "smart people" looking at these sorts of "issues" than most people could even attempt to dream about...

The object is to create an interface that is consistent across the platforms it is intended to be used upon, and... tada... as SSZ just reminded us, the touch screen aspects of Windows 7 have a big humongous part to play in the design and functionality of this OS as it exists at this very moment.

Don't forget that...
 
The whole touchscreen thing could be used as an argument, but they didn't seem to take that same approach in some other areas. *shrugs* I personally like the icons at the larger, default size, but oh well.
 
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Nope :(

jkr266 said:
havent gotten to try it for myself yet, but that just looks like standard bar behavior to me. ie the icons are evenly spaced. if you add more items to the bar do they not get closer together?
Click to expand...
 
How did you re-enable the old Quicklaunch? I've been looking for that capability.


bmg said:
In general I like the new taskbar, but I agree...there should be a way to pack icons closer together. I re-enabled the old quicklaunch, but I could live without it if I had to. I have 7-8 things that I like to have ready to launch on the taskbar, and that just takes too darn much space on the new bar.

You might try turning off text labels to save some space with running apps.
Click to expand...
 
So, 99.99% of us must live with limitations to facilitate the .01% (if that) of folks with touch-screens.

Makes sense to me :)

I see no reason the system could not accomodate both instead of limiting the majority for the sake of the minority.

Joe Average said:
See, I just knew someone would remember that article. :)

The complainers approach this stuff from the "Oh I don't know why they did this because I don't like it/it sucks/change it back" and they simply cannot see it from any other perspective, whereas Microsoft when designing this OS (and all their products) has more "smart people" looking at these sorts of "issues" than most people could even attempt to dream about...

The object is to create an interface that is consistent across the platforms it is intended to be used upon, and... tada... as SSZ just reminded us, the touch screen aspects of Windows 7 have a big humongous part to play in the design and functionality of this OS as it exists at this very moment.

Don't forget that...
Click to expand...
 
I see no reason the system could not accomodate both instead of limiting the majority for the sake of the minority.
Click to expand...
More coding, more testing means less other features. MS doesn't have an infinite supply of developer time.
 
Which is why too much of their stuff is half-baked.

Ah, I fixed it anyway. I re-instated the quick-launch bar and now I'm operating the same as Vista or XP.

Arainach said:
More coding, more testing means less other features. MS doesn't have an infinite supply of developer time.
Click to expand...
 
Do not question the overload weakling! You shall do things exactly as he says you should!
 
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