A Closer Look at: The Windows 7 Taskbar -Part 3

In this part we’ll explain how to open another window of a running application, progress bars, thumbnail toolbars and arranging icons on the taskbar. If you’ve missed the previous parts of the guide, it’s recommended that you read part 1 and part 2 for better understanding.

Opening another Window of a Running Application

In his article, The biggest flaw with the Windows 7 taskbar, Mike Halsey stated that the Windows 7 taskbar can be confusing for new users when trying to open a new window of a pinned running application. Normally when clicking on the icon of a pinned application, Windows 7 opens that application. However, if you try to click on it while the application is running, it would either restore or minimize it - depending on the window’s current state.

To open another window of a running application, you can use any of the following ways:

• Right-click on its icon –> Select its name from the jump list that appears – third item from down to up.
• Click on its icon while holding the SHIFT key
• Click on its icon with the mouse scroll key
• Press: Windows Key + SHIFT + Number. Once again, the number corresponds to application’s position on the taskbar.

This works with applications that are not pinned to the taskbar as well. Needless to say, being able to run another instance of a running application from the taskbar saves you time and clicks.

Progress Bars

Let’s say Joe is downloading a file in Internet Explorer. The file is quite big and would take a few hours to download. Joe is so eager that he checks how much of the downloaded has been completed every few minutes. Because he’s using Windows 7, he doesn’t have to do a single click to find out. Instead, he just looks at Internet Explorer’s button on the taskbar.  Look at the screenshots below, notice anything?

The taskbar automatically displays a progress bar behind the application’s icon, showing how much of the download is complete. So in this case, Joe can have an estimate of the download progress:

This also works when copying or moving files and folders, however, the progress bar will appear in the Windows Explorer icon this time. In addition, we should see new versions of programs – that support Windows 7 – exploiting this feature. At the time of writing this article, Firefox still doesn’t support the Windows 7 taskbar jump lists and progress bars. If you prefer using Firefox and would like to take advantage of these features, you can use WinFox. To learn more about this nifty tool, check out this article written by Martin.

Thumbnail Toolbars

Thumbnail toolbars allow application to add controls right in the context of taskbar buttons. In other words, you can control a program - supporting this feature - right from the taskbar. Thumbnail toolbars are displayed when clicking on, or hovering over, the application’s icon on the taskbar and appear under its thumbnail preview. A good example of a program that uses this feature is Windows Media Player.

Windows Media Player's Thumbnail Toolbar

The thumbnail toolbar allows users to play/pause the open media and move through the current playlist without having to actually switch to the Windows Media Player window. We hope to see more software developers supporting this feature in future versions of their software.

Arranging Icons on the Taskbar

Another thing that makes Windows 7’s taskbar unique is that its buttons can be repositioned by drag-and-drop, as shown in the image below:

Arranging Icons on the Windows 7 Taskbar

This can be done to arrange pinned and unpinned applications. Although not as important as the previous features, it’s still fun to use.