I guess everyone has already seen the touchscreen presentation from the All Things Digital conference a few days ago. While most eyes were glued to that main presentation it turned out that Microsoft was revealing more information than they wanted to reveal at that point. Long Zheng has already written a great article about the taskbar that was shown during the presentation of the multi-touch feature of Windows 7. He discovered the following information about the Windows 7 taskbar:
- The taskbar is higher than usual, probably 1.75x as high as the normal taskbar
- The Windows orb still sticks the upper part out of the taskbar
- The taskbar is divided into different colored sections
- The system tray is not touching the edge of the screen
- Two lines for the date and icons in the middle of the taskbar
- Larger Quick Launch icons
There was another interesting tidbit that could lead to some speculation. During the presentation Julie Larson Green’s opens a circle menu by pressing her finger on the screen for a short period of time.
That circle menu (or pie menu) could be an indication that Microsoft will introduce circle menus in Windows 7 on a broader scale, at least for the time when a user is using the touch interface. It’s not yet clear if the touch menu shown was purely related to the application or if it was a broader menu that works in full screen applications.
From the visible icons (plane, earth) I would say that it is a specific menu of the application which does not mean that other menus or even the Windows desktop will not have a pie menu as well.
