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Windows 11’s taskbar is finally getting labels and never combine app icons

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Re: Windows 11’s taskbar is finally getting labels and never combine app icons

#41

Post by Stratoscope »

cypress66 wrote: post #24

Small taskbar still missing. It makes no sense having such a large taskbar (in terms of height).

Indeed. I have been using Explorer Patcher only for the single reason that I don't need or want a big tall taskbar. I was fine with my "small icon" taskbar from Windows 10.

And then some whoever said "We need a brand new taskbar because our code is too complicated and it's hard to maintain! Those people who preferred the smaller taskbar? It's their loss. We can't afford the development time to support that legacy feature in our complete rewrite!"

Re: Windows 11’s taskbar is finally getting labels and never combine app icons

#42

Post by jiggawatts »

mangecoeur wrote: post #23
tinus_hn wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know if they actually changed this but the Windows 10 Start Menu is a fragile bricolage of applets and plugins that breaks all the time which is just not suitable for such an important part. I’d throw it out and rebuild it to make it reliable and defensive against broken applets.

That's something I was genuinely wondering, how bad was the win10 task bar codebase because as i understand it the win11 is a completely new program so they have to keep reimplementing features they already had.

> win11 is a completely new program

It’s barely a UI skin! It’s not even complete or self-consistent, and the original Win10 skin is still there under it, feature-complete. People noticed that certain boot failures of Win 11 bring back the original Win 10 look!

It’s basically a “Mac mod” for Windows made by a bunch of Apple users working within Microsoft.

Re: Windows 11’s taskbar is finally getting labels and never combine app icons

#43

Post by jiggawatts »

farmin wrote: post #31

I used Windows server 2022 for first time today on a vps. It's what I imagine we all want windows to be. Just simple Windows 10ish ui without all the fluff. I imagine its very stable too given its for servers. Reminds me of Windows 2000 I ran on my Pentium 2. Does anyone just use Windows sever 2022 on their desktop? Why not?

The equivalent OS for desktops is the Windows 11 Long Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) release, which is what you described but with desktop pricing and a few minor differences.

I once used an older LTSC version for a virtual desktop fleet because it’s a lot better behaved at scale. You don’t want to use a “normal” release because Microsoft will randomly push a critical 4 gigabyte update… to Minecraft. When 60K VMs update at once on a single SAN array, it’s not pretty.

That, or Microsoft will randomly decide to install TikTok by default on virtual desktops used from terminals in operating theatres.

I had a Microsoft consultant review our system and I swear his report said “we don’t recommend LTSC, you should use Current Branch” at least fifteen times.

That’s when I realised that there was some serious KPI pressure within Microsoft to get users onto the full-telemetry, riddled-with-ads version.

Re: Windows 11’s taskbar is finally getting labels and never combine app icons

#44

Post by mangecoeur »

jiggawatts wrote: post #42
mangecoeur wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's something I was genuinely wondering, how bad was the win10 task bar codebase because as i understand it the win11 is a completely new program so they have to keep reimplementing features they already had.

> win11 is a completely new program It’s barely a UI skin! It’s not even complete or self-consistent, and the original Win10 skin is still there under it, feature-complete. People noticed that certain boot failures of Win 11 bring back the original Win 10 look! It’s basically a “Mac mod” for Windows made by a bunch of Apple users working within Microsoft.

Ironically, one of the qualities of the Mac is the consistency of the interface styling and UX irrespective of how specifically the task bar works, while Microsoft just keep adding layer on top of layer so that depending on which bit of the system you are in you get UI styles ranging from win11 through win2000 (plus, if you dig, a whole bunch of pixel art icons from win98).

Re: Windows 11’s taskbar is finally getting labels and never combine app icons

#45

Post by TiredOfLife »

mangecoeur wrote: post #2

Amazing, only 2 years to implement a feature you had already. What was so problematic about the Windows 10 taskbar that they had to completely scrap it and start from zero??

They had a huge failure with Surface Neo and the OS (and the taskbar/start menu) they were making for it Windows 10x. After Neo was cancelled they tried to retool 10x for ordinary laptops. After that failed they took the crappy start/taskbar meant for dual screen/one app per screen devices, slapped it on top of latest insider version of Windows 10, introduced arbitrary cpu cutoff (so essentially screwing a large part of Windows insiders) and called it Windows 11.

Re: Windows 11’s taskbar is finally getting labels and never combine app icons

#46

Post by mangecoeur »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #25
mangecoeur wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's something I was genuinely wondering, how bad was the win10 task bar codebase because as i understand it the win11 is a completely new program so they have to keep reimplementing features they already had.

> how bad was the win10 task bar codebase Well, in Windows 10 there's at least 4 different styles of context-menu in the Taskbar depending on where you click - so given that, I'm guessing it's a bit of a mess. 1. Right-click the Start button or empty space on the Taskbar: Win32 (USER32?) standard menu, but with a custom dark background and extra menu-item padding to make them touch-friendly. Earlier versions of Windo…

But is this fixed in win11? From what others tell me the win11 is actually just another skin on the same code. You can still find plenty of UI styles from previous windows in win11

Re: Windows 11’s taskbar is finally getting labels and never combine app icons

#47

Post by Springtime »

ghusbands wrote: post #35
Springtime wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vertical has always been much wider than the horizontal layout is tall, at least when using the small taskbar icons setting. However the third-party utility 7+ Taskbar Tweaker allows narrower vertical taskbars, which actually makes the vertical orientation ideal if placed on the left-hand side (the least interacted with edge of a desktop, ie: less likely to be accidentally interacted with).

You can make it narrow enough to only just fit the date at the bottom, without third-party utilities, which seems small enough. Also, there's typically plenty of spare width and not much spare height, due to modern aspect ratios, so it's a win, anyway. Also also, if you do the maths, the typical vertical taskbar can be significantly thicker and use no more screen area.

> You can make it narrow enough to only just fit the date at the bottom, without third-party utilities, which seems small enough.

Not sure about your system but on both of mine by default it's over double the thickness of the horizontal taskbar when small icons are used.

> Also also, if you do the maths, the typical vertical taskbar can be significantly thicker and use no more screen area.

So I measured this on my system with a 2560x1440px monitor (16:9 being a typical aspect ratio). Horizontal taskbar total pixels: 76800. Vertical taskbar total pixels: 96480. Vertical orientation still objectively consumes more screen real estate, unless the 7+ Taskbar Tweaker mod is used.

A sibling comment mentions a user with an ultrawide though, which due to the sheer width I suppose is a scenario where the default vertical is smaller overall. Or perhaps if larger icons are used.

Re: Windows 11’s taskbar is finally getting labels and never combine app icons

#48

Post by farmin »

jiggawatts wrote: post #43
farmin wrote: post #31

I used Windows server 2022 for first time today on a vps. It's what I imagine we all want windows to be. Just simple Windows 10ish ui without all the fluff. I imagine its very stable too given its for servers. Reminds me of Windows 2000 I ran on my Pentium 2. Does anyone just use Windows sever 2022 on their desktop? Why not?

The equivalent OS for desktops is the Windows 11 Long Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) release, which is what you described but with desktop pricing and a few minor differences. I once used an older LTSC version for a virtual desktop fleet because it’s a lot better behaved at scale. You don’t want to use a “normal” release because Microsoft will randomly push a critical 4 gigabyte update… to Minecraft. When 60K VMs upda…

Well there you go. News to me.

Re: Windows 11’s taskbar is finally getting labels and never combine app icons

#49

Post by ChancyChance »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #38

I hope they are also going to add support for left/top alignment of the icons (the classic way), for removal of left&right margins in centered alignment (Mac way) so places to the left and right of the icons would be free screen space rather than empty panel area, good support for horizontal panel placing, turn system icons (unmount device, network indicators, sound volume&output control, keyboard layout indicator, c…

The first half of that (alignment) already exists.

Re: Windows 11’s taskbar is finally getting labels and never combine app icons

#50

Post by ChancyChance »

danielrpa wrote: post #34

YES! Thank you for focusing on productivity instead of copying Apple's obsolete UI.

I know you’re trolling, but it’s funny that the CLI is the most productive UI and it is literally ancient/obsolete in computer time yet it persists. New != better.
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