3.4 The Taskbar

The permanent blue stripe across the bottom of your screen is the taskbar, one of the most prominent and important elements of the Windows interface (see Figure 3-11).

Figure 3-11. When you see nothing but microscopic icons, point without clicking to view an identifying tooltip.

The taskbar has several segments, each dedicated to an important function. Its right end, the notification area, contains little status icons that display the time, whether or not you're online, whether or not your laptop's plugged in, and so on. The main portion of the taskbar, of course, helps you keep your open windows and programs under control. You can even dress up your taskbar with additional little segments called toolbars , as described in the following pages.

This section covers each of these features in turn .

3.4.1 The Notification Area

In Windows XP, Microsoft has chosen a new name for the area formerly known as the tray (the group of tiny icons at the right end of the taskbar): the notification area. (Why use one syllable when eight will do?)

The purpose is much the same: to give you quick access to little status indicators and pop-up menus that control various functions of your PC. Many a software installer inserts its own little icon into this area: fax software, virus software, palmtop synchronization software, and so on.

INFREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION
The Radio Toolbar

Didn't there used to be another toolbar ”the radio toolbar? How am I supposed to tune in my favorite Internet radio stations ?

It's gone from Windows XP. When you're in the mood for a little classical music as you crunch numbers , use the new Media Explorer bar panel instead (Section 3.1.2).

NOTE

To figure out what an icon represents, point to it without clicking so that a tooltip appears. To access the controls that accompany it, try both left-clicking and right-clicking the tiny icon. Often, each click produces a different pop-up menu filled with useful controls.

Despite the expansion of its name, you'll probably discover that this area is much smaller than it used to be. On a new PC, for example, you may find little more than the current time.

NOTE

By double-clicking the time display, you open the Date and Time Control Panel program. And if you point to the time without clicking, a tooltip appears to tell you the day of the week and today's date.

That's because Microsoft's XP anti-clutter campaign reached a fever pitch when it came to this component of the operating system. The designers of Windows had noticed that software companies large and small had been indiscriminately dumping little icons into this area, sometimes for prestige more than utility.

Therefore, Microsoft laid down two policies concerning this critical piece of screen real estate:

• Even Microsoft's own usual junk ”the speaker icon for volume control, the display icon for changing screen resolution, the battery icon for laptops, and so on ”is absent on a fresh XP installation. If you want to add these controls to the notification area, you must do it yourself, using the corresponding Control Panel programs as described in Chapter 9.

• Notification area icons that you don't use often will be summarily hidden after a couple of weeks. See Figure 3-12 for details.

  Figure 3-12. If you see a < button, Windows is telling you that it has hidden some of your notification-area icons. Click this button to expand the notification area, bringing all of the hidden icons into view (bottom).

  

3.4.2 Window Buttons

Every time you open a window, whether at the desktop or in one of your programs, the taskbar sprouts a button bearing that window's name and icon. Buttons make it easy to switch between open programs and windows: Just click one to bring its associated window into the foreground, even if it has been minimized.

The taskbar is the antidote for COWS (Cluttered Overlapping Window Syndrome). In fact, if you work with a lot of windows, you'll run smack into one of the biggest and most visible changes in Windows XP: taskbar button groups.

In the old days, opening a lot of windows might produce the relatively useless display of truncated buttons, as illustrated in Figure 3-13. Not only are the buttons too narrow to read the names of the windows, but the buttons appear in chronological order, not software-program order.

Figure 3-13. Top: The old taskbar wasn't much help in managing a bunch of windows. Middle: Nowadays, a crowded taskbar combines its buttons. Bottom left: Click one of these button groups to see the list of windows it's concealing. Bottom right: Right-click to operate on all windows at once.

The new Windows taskbar does two things that no Windows taskbar has done before. First, when conditions become crowded, it automatically groups the names of open windows into a single menu that sprouts from the corresponding program button, as shown at bottom in Figure 3-13. Click the taskbar button bearing the program's name to produce a pop-up menu of the window names. Now you can jump directly to the one you want.

Second, even when there is plenty of room, Windows XP aligns the buttons into horizontal groups by program. So you'll see all the Word-document buttons appear, followed by all the Excel-document buttons, and so on.

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Turning Off Notification Area Auto-Hiding

In general, the temporary removal of notification area icons you haven't used in a while is a noble ambition . Most of the time, you truly won't miss any invisible icons, and their absence will make the icons you do use stand out all the more.

Still, you can tell Windows to leave your tray alone ”to leave every notification area icon in full view all the time. To do so, right-click a blank area of the taskbar; from the drop-down menu, choose Properties. At the bottom of the resulting dialog box, turn off the "Hide inactive icons" checkbox, and click OK.

If that seems a little drastic, don't miss the Customize button just to the right of that checkbox. It opens a list of every tray icon that would normally appear, if it weren't for Windows XP's efforts. Click in the Behavior column to produce a pop-up menu for each item. Choose the status you want for each individual tray icon: "Hide when inactive," "Always hide," and "Always show." Finally, click OK.

Despite these dramatic changes, most of the following time-honored basics still apply:

• To bring a window to the foreground, making it the active window, click its button on the taskbar. (If clicking a button doesn't bring a window forward, it's because Windows has combined several open windows into a single button. Just click the corresponding program's button as though it's a menu, and then choose the specific window you want from the resulting list, as shown in Figure 3-13.)

• To hide an active window that's before you on the screen, click its taskbar button ”a great feature that a lot of PC fans miss. (To hide a background window, click its taskbar button twice: once to bring the window forward, again to hide it.)

• To minimize, maximize, restore, or close a window, even if you can't see it on the screen, right-click its button on the taskbar and choose the appropriate command from the shortcut menu (Figure 3-13, bottom). It's a real timesaver to close a window without first bringing it into the foreground. (You can still right-click a window's name when it appears in one of the consolidated taskbar menus described earlier.)

• To arrange all visible windows in an overlapping pattern as shown in Figure 3-14, right-click a blank spot on the taskbar and choose Cascade Windows from the shortcut menu.

  Figure 3-14. When you've cascaded your windows, click any title bar to bring its window to the foreground. After you've clicked a few title bars and worked in several windows, you'll need to choose Cascade Windows again to rearrange all your open windows. (By right-clicking a consolidated taskbar button, you can cascade only the windows of one program. If you want to cascade all windows of all programs, right-click a blank part of the taskbar.)

  

• To arrange all non-minimized windows in neat little boxes, each getting an equal rectangular chunk of your screen, right-click a blank spot on the taskbar and choose Tile Windows Vertically or Tile Windows Horizontally from the shortcut menu.

• To minimize all the windows in one fell swoop, right-click a blank spot on the taskbar and choose Show the Desktop from the shortcut menu ”or just press the Windows logo key+D.

  NOTE

  When the taskbar is crowded with buttons, it may not be easy to find a blank spot to click. Usually there's a little gap near the right end. You can make it easier to find some blank space by enlarging the taskbar, as described on the facing page.

• If you change your mind, the taskbar shortcut menu always includes an Undo command for the last taskbar command you invoked. (Its wording changes to reflect your most recent action ”"Undo Minimize All," for example.)

• To close the windows from different programs all at once, Ctrl-click their taskbar buttons to select them. Then right-click the last one you clicked, and choose Close Group from the shortcut menu.

3.4.3 The Quick Launch Toolbar

At the left end of the taskbar ”just to the right of the Start button ”is a handful of tiny, unlabeled icons. This is the Quick Launch toolbar, one of the most useful features in Windows. See Section 3.5.1 for details on this and other toolbars.

3.4.4 Customizing the Taskbar

You're not stuck with the taskbar exactly as it came from Microsoft. You can resize it, move it, or hide it completely. Most people don't bother, but it's always good to know what options you have.

3.4.4.1 Moving the taskbar

You can move the taskbar to the top of your monitor, or, if you're a true rebel, to either side.

To do so, first ensure that the toolbar isn't locked (which means that you can't move or resize the taskbar ”or any of its toolbars, for that matter). Right-click a blank spot on the taskbar to produce the taskbar shortcut menu. If "Lock the taskbar" is checked, select it to make the checkmark disappear.

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Bringing Back the Old Taskbar

The new taskbar's tendency to consolidate the names of document windows into a single program button saves space, for sure.

Even so, it's not inconceivable that you might prefer the old system. For example, once Windows stacks the names of your documents, you no longer can bring a certain application to the front just by clicking its taskbar button. (You must actually choose from its menu, which is a lot more effort.)

To make Windows XP display the taskbar the way it used to, right-click an empty area of the taskbar and choose Properties from the shortcut menu. Turn off the "Group similar taskbar buttons" checkbox and then click OK.

Now you can drag the taskbar to any edge of the screen, using any blank spot in the central section as a handle. Release the mouse when the taskbar leaps to the edge you've indicated with the cursor.

When the taskbar is on the left or right edge of the screen, Windows XP widens it automatically so that you can read the button names, which remain horizontal. (Ergonomic studies have indicated that keeping your neck bent at a 90 degree angle to read vertical buttons isn't so hot for your spine.)

NOTE

No matter which edge of the screen holds your taskbar, your programs are generally smart enough to adjust their own windows as necessary. In other words, your Word document will shift sideways so that it doesn't overlap the taskbar that you've dragged to the side of the screen.

3.4.4.2 Resizing the taskbar

Even with the new button-grouping feature, the taskbar can still accumulate a lot of buttons and icons. As a result, you may want to enlarge the taskbar to see what's what.

Begin by making sure that the taskbar isn't locked, as described earlier. Then position your pointer on the inside edge of the taskbar (the edge closest to the desktop). When the pointer turns into a double-headed arrow, drag toward the desktop (to enlarge the taskbar) or toward the edge of your monitor (to minimize it).

NOTE

If you're resizing a taskbar that's on the top or bottom of the screen, the taskbar automatically changes its size in full taskbar-height increments . You can't fine-tune the height; you can only double or triple it, for example.

If it's on the left or right edge of your screen, however, you can resize the taskbar freely .

3.4.4.3 Hiding the taskbar

If you're working on a smallish monitor, you may wish that the taskbar would make itself scarce now and then ”like when you're working on a word processing or Web page document that needs every pixel of space you can get.

Fortunately, it's easy to make the taskbar hide itself until you need it. Start by right-clicking a blank spot on the taskbar, and then choose Properties from the shortcut menu. The Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box appears, offering these options:

• Keep the taskbar on top of other windows . This option ”the factory setting ” permits no other window to cover up the taskbar. Your program windows automatically shrink as necessary to accommodate the taskbar's screen bulk. (If you turn off this option, full-screen application windows overlap the taskbar.)

  NOTE

  To open the taskbar when it's not visible, just press Ctrl+Esc, or press the Windows logo key on your keyboard.

• Auto-hide the taskbar . This feature makes the taskbar disappear whenever you're not using it ”a clever way to devote your entire screen to application windows, and yet have the taskbar at your cursor tip when needed.

  When this feature is turned on, the taskbar disappears whenever you click elsewhere, or whenever your cursor moves away from it. Only a thin blue line at the edge of the screen indicates that you have a taskbar at all. As soon as your pointer moves close to that line, the taskbar joyfully springs back into view.

3.4.4.4 Hiding the taskbar manually

When, on some random Tuesday, you decide to get the taskbar out of your hair temporarily ”when reading a vast spreadsheet, for example ”don't bother with the checkboxes described in the previous paragraphs. There's a quicker way to hide the taskbar: just drag it forcibly off the screen. Point to the inside edge of the taskbar, so that your cursor becomes a double-headed arrow, before dragging down.

Once again, a thin blue line represents the hidden edge. You can grab that line like a handle to pull the taskbar back onto the screen when you want it.