Taskbar


The taskbar is a graphical user interface element that has been part of Microsoft Windows since Windows 95, displaying and facilitating switching between running programs. The taskbar and the associated Start Menu were created and named in 1993 by Daniel Oran, a program manager at Microsoft who had previously collaborated on great ape language research with the behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner at Harvard.
The taskbar is an exemplar of a category of always-visible graphical user interface elements that provide access to fundamental operating system functions and information. At the time of its introduction in 1995, the taskbar was unique among such elements because it provided the user with a means of switching between running programs through a single click of the pointing device.
Since the introduction of Windows 95, other operating systems have incorporated graphical user interface elements that closely resemble the taskbar or have similar features. The designs vary, but generally include a strip along one edge of the screen. Icons or textual descriptions on this strip correspond to open windows. Clicking the icons or text enables the user to easily switch between windows, with the active window often appearing differently from the others on the strip. In some versions of recent operating systems, users can "pin" programs or files to this strip for quick access. In many cases, there is also a notification area, which includes interactive icons that display real-time information about the computer system and some of the running programs.
With the rapid evolution of operating systems and graphical user interfaces, items that are native to each operating system have been included in the various designs.

Antecedents

Windows 1.0

, released in 1985, features a horizontal bar located at the bottom of the screen where running programs reside when minimized, represented by icons. A window can be minimized by double-clicking its title bar, dragging it onto an empty spot on the bar, or by issuing a command from one of its menus. A minimized window is restored by double-clicking its icon or dragging the icon out of the bar.
The bar features multiple slots for icons and expands vertically to provide the user with more rows as more slots are needed. Its color is the same as that of the screen background, which can be customized. Minimized windows can be freely placed in any of the empty slots. Program windows cannot overlap the bar unless maximized.
The Start button did not make an appearance in these early implementations of the taskbar, and would be introduced at a much later date with the release of Windows 95.

Arthur

Another early implementation can be seen in the Arthur operating system from Acorn Computers. It is called the icon bar and remains an essential part of Arthur's succeeding RISC OS operating system. The icon bar holds icons which represent mounted disc drives and RAM discs, running applications and system utilities. These icons have their own context-sensitive menus and support drag and drop behaviour.

Amiga

featured various third party implementations of the taskbar concept, and this inheritance is present also in its successors. For example, AmiDock, born as third-party utility, has then been integrated into AmigaOS 3.9 and AmigaOS 4.0. The AROS operating system has its version of Amistart that is provided with the OS and free to be installed by users, while MorphOS has been equipped with a dock utility just like in AmigaOS or Mac OS X.

Microsoft Windows

The default settings for the taskbar in Microsoft Windows place it at the bottom of the screen and includes from left to right the Start menu button, Quick Launch bar, taskbar buttons, and notification area. The Quick Launch toolbar was added with the Windows Desktop Update and is not enabled by default in Windows XP. Windows 7 removed the Quick Launch feature in favor of pinning applications to the taskbar itself. In Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, a hotspot located in the bottom-left corner of the screen replaced the Start button, although this change was reverted in Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2.
The Windows 95 taskbar buttons evolved from an earlier task-switching design by Daniel Oran, a program manager at Microsoft, that featured file-folder-like tabs across the top of the screen, similar to those that later appeared in web browsers. For this reason, the taskbar was originally intended to be at the top of the screen. But the final configuration of Windows 95 put the taskbar at the bottom of the screen, replacing a user interface element called the tray that had been borrowed from Microsoft's Cairo project. Windows 95 OSR 2.5 would add the Quick Launch toolbar.
With the release of Windows XP, Microsoft changed the behavior of the taskbar to take advantage of Fitts's law by removing a border of pixels surrounding the Start button which did not activate the menu, allowing the menu to be activated by clicking directly in the corner of the screen. Icons in the notification area could now be hidden to save space and revealed with the arrow button.
For Windows Vista, the taskbar remained functionally the same but received a visual overhaul to align the new Windows Aero design language, introducing transparency effects to the taskbar, and a start button that now slightly overlapped the content displayed above the taskbar.
With Windows 7 saw the first major redesign of the taskbar since its introduction with larger application icons, the ability to pin application to the taskbar so that they're shown even if they aren't running, and hiding the application names by default. Quick Launch was also disabled by default. Users still had the option to show the application labels and reduce the taskbar height to create a taskbar similar to the design used in Windows Vista. At the right side of the taskbar, the Aero Peak button was added, allowing users to quickly view the contents of the desktop and their widgets by hovering over the button, or minimize all applications by clicking on it.
Windows 8 introduced no functional changes to the taskbar, but replaced the Start button and Aero Peek button with hot corners for desktop users. Tablet users could now use the Charms bar. Windows 8.1 restored the Start button, and with Windows 8.1 Update, it was now possible to see Metro apps on the taskbar and pin them, as well as to access the taskbar while on the Start screen.
Windows 10, version 1507 added various major changes to the taskbar. A search bar was now shown by default that could be replaced with a search button or be hidden, when Cortana was available, the search function was replaced with the digital assistant. The Task View button allowed users to quickly view their running apps and desktops. A button to open the Action Center was also added on the left hand side of the clock, before being moved to the right hand side in Windows 10, version 1607. Additionally, the taskbar would now change when Windows was set to tablet mode, hiding the pinned and running apps and collapsing the search bar into a search icon. It would also show a back button.

Taskbar elements

  • The Start button, a button that invokes the Start menu. It appears in Windows 9x, Windows NT 4.0 and all its successors, except Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012.
  • The Quick Launch bar, introduced on Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 through the Windows Desktop Update for Internet Explorer 4 and bundled with Windows 95 OSR 2.5 Windows 98, contains shortcuts to applications. Windows provides default entries, such as Launch Internet Explorer Browser, and the user or third-party software may add any further shortcuts that they choose. A single click on the application's icon in this area launches the application. This section may not always be present: for example it is turned off by default in Windows XP and Windows 7.
  • The Windows shell places a taskbar button on the taskbar whenever an application creates an unowned window: that is, a window that does not have a parent and that is created according to normal Windows user interface guidelines. Typically all Single Document Interface applications have a single taskbar button for each open window, although modal windows may also appear there.
  • * Windows 98 and Windows Desktop Update for Windows 95 introduced the ability to minimize foreground windows by clicking their button on the taskbar. They also introduced DeskBands.
  • * Windows 2000 introduced balloon notifications.
  • * Windows Me added an option to disable moving or resizing the taskbar.
  • * Windows XP introduced taskbar grouping, which can group the taskbar buttons of several windows from the same application into a single button. This button pops up a menu listing all the grouped windows when clicked. This keeps the taskbar from being overcrowded when many windows are open at once.
  • * Windows Vista introduced window previews which show thumbnail views of the application in real-time. This capability is provided by the Desktop Window Manager. The Start menu tooltip no longer says "Click here to begin" but now says simply "Start".
  • * Windows 7 introduced jumplists which are menus that provide shortcuts to recently opened documents, frequently opened documents, folders paths, or various options which apply to that specific program or pinned website shortcut. Jump lists appear when the user right-clicks on an icon in the taskbar or drags the icon upwards with the mouse left click. Recent and frequent files and folders can be pinned inside the jump list.
  • * Windows 7 introduced the ability to pin applications to the taskbar so that buttons for launching them appear when they are not running. Previously, the Quick Launch was used to pin applications to the taskbar; however, running programs appeared as a separate button.
  • * Windows 7 removed several classic taskbar features.
  • * Windows 11 removed taskbar grouping, possibly to have the functionality to move the taskbar to the left side of the screen, etc., but the old taskbar could be reactivated.
  • ' are minimized functional, long-running programs, such as Windows Media Player. Programs that minimize to deskbands are not displayed in the taskbar.
  • The ' is the portion of the taskbar that displays icons for system and program features that have no presence on the desktop as well as the time and the volume icon. It contains mainly icons that show status information, though some programs, such as Winamp, use it for minimized windows. By default, this is located in the bottom-right of the primary monitor, or at the bottom of the taskbar if docked vertically. The clock appears here, and applications can put icons in the notification area to indicate the status of an operation or to notify the user about an event. For example, an application might put a printer icon in the status area to show that a print job is under way, or a display driver application may provide quick access to various screen resolutions. The notification area is commonly referred to as the system tray, which Microsoft states is wrong, although the term is sometimes used in Microsoft documentation, articles, software descriptions, and even applications from Microsoft such as Bing Desktop. Raymond Chen suggests the confusion originated with systray.exe, a small application that controlled some icons within the notification area in Windows 95. The notification area is also referred to as the status area by Microsoft. In the current edition of Microsoft Writing Style Guide, Microsoft has clarified that beginning with Windows 11, system tray is now the preferred term, while notification area is the term used in Windows 10 and Windows 8.
  • * In older versions of Windows the notification area icons were limited to 16 colors. Windows Me added support for high color notification area icons.
  • * Starting with Windows XP, the user can choose to always show or hide some icons, or hide them if inactive for some time. A button allows the user to reveal all the icons.
  • * Starting with Windows Vista, the taskbar notification area is split into two areas: one reserved for system icons including clock, volume, network and power; the other for applications.
  • * Starting with Windows 7, the system icons and applications are shown in the same area again.
  • * Starting with Windows 11, the separate volume, network, and power icons are combined into a single button that opens a quick settings menu when clicked. The clock and notification center buttons are also combined.
  • Since the Windows 95 Desktop Update, the Quick Launch bar featured as one of its default shortcuts which automatically minimizes all opened applications, redundant with the Winkey-D key combination. On Windows 7, a dedicated Show desktop button was placed to the right of the notification area and could not be removed. With the "Peek" option enabled, hovering over the button hides all opened windows to expose the desktop. On Windows 10, the "Show desktop" widget changed yet again, being reduced to a narrow iconless strip at the far right of the taskbar. On Windows 11, the "Show Desktop" widget can be disabled from the taskbar settings.