Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Windows IT Technology

The Windows 11 Taskbar is Getting Better for People Who Open Tons of Apps (arstechnica.com) 66

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
We appear to be entering a period of Windows' development where we can expect new features and tweaks to come to the operating system several times a year. To that end, Microsoft continues to add, remove, and generally experiment with Windows 11's features and user interface via its Insider Preview channels. From a report: The most interesting addition we've seen in a while is rolling out to users on the experimental Dev Channel now: a modified version of the taskbar with much-improved handling of app icon overflow when users have too many apps open at once. Click an ellipsis button on your taskbar, and a new icon overflow menu opens up, allowing you to interact with any of those extra icons the same way you would if they were sitting on the taskbar. This would be a big improvement over the current overflow behavior, which devotes one icon's worth of space to show the icon for the app you last interacted with, leaving the rest inaccessible. That icon will continue to appear on the taskbar alongside the new ellipsis icon. Microsoft says that app icons in the overflow area will be able to show jump lists and other customizable shortcuts the same as any other app icon in the taskbar.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

The Windows 11 Taskbar is Getting Better for People Who Open Tons of Apps More

The Windows 11 Taskbar is Getting Better for People Who Open Tons of Apps

Comments Filter:

  • Worked pretty well 15 years ago, why not just use that?

  • Is this Slashdot? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mi ( 197448 )

    I still remember, when saying anything positive about Microsoft — and their operating system(s) — on Slashdot would be flamed into oblivion.

    Obviously, not the case any more. Their software has not improved since then, so what did happen?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Merk42 ( 1906718 )
      This article hasn't been posted for that long yet. This is still the place where anything MIKKKRO$OFT does is wrong, even when they do something they were bitched at for not doing.

    • Hatred fatigue? After a few decades, it's understandable.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Hatred fatigue? After a few decades, it's understandable.

        I recommend of working with MS "Office" for a few hours to cure that. I never have encountered any other software that so constantly and persistently disappoints.

    • Re:Is this Slashdot? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jwhyche ( 6192 ) on Friday July 22, 2022 @02:32PM (#62725288) Homepage

      Probably, because their software has improved significantly since those days.

      But mainly the culture and nature of Slashdot has changed. We are no longer a technical board dedicated to open source software. There used to be a time when Slashdot was a force in the opensource community, hell, a force in the computer field.

      Those days are long gone.

    • Microsoft has always had its defenders here, although I suppose decades ago it was fairly Windows-hostile. But Windows 2000 converted many hearts and minds, of people who do not care about Software Freedom so much as they just want software that works.

    • Their software has not improved since then, so what did happen?

      Um, it has improved.

    • There are no more card carrying geeks on sloshdat.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
        Let me qualify thar for you ( it's easy to forget). "There are no mor card carrying os geeks on slashdot". There might be lots of networking/cg/programming geeks left here, but they don't see the os as an end in it self, they just see it as a platform to run whatever tools they need/want to persue ther oeticular corner of the geek universe. We allso might see an influx of people that did not have to suffer thru the win 98/ win ME era and thus do not bare the scars and the understandable aversion to any os
    • Maybe because there used to be a lot of people who preferred MacOS but that hasn't changed at all in the last 10 years?

  • I really don't get the Windows 11 rollout. So they released it missing a bunch of features that Windows 10 already had, and they've been putting things back in ever since? Is Windows 11 really that different from Windows 10, under the hood? Were there any significant security improvements, for example? Or did they just break the UI and push it out the door?

    Also, they spent so much time reassuring everyone that Windows 10's hardware requirements weren't any different than Windows 7's and sometimes the specs

    • So they released it missing a bunch of features that Windows 10 already had, and they've been putting things back in ever since?

      I think they cut out any old code that was a performance killer as a major goal. Not to say that 11 is in any way leaner. There was a lot that they intentionally decided not to add back in.

      At least they still haven't cut the Control Panel. It's been so many years since Windows 8 tried to replace it and they still haven't replicated the whole thing yet.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        So they released it missing a bunch of features that Windows 10 already had, and they've been putting things back in ever since?

        I think they cut out any old code that was a performance killer as a major goal.

        Yeah, that is probably the reason why Win11 is slower in many situation than Win10.

        • They had to make room for the new bloat somehow.

          Now, I honestly don't perceive it as being slower but I'm a sample size of one and my computer is fast enough I probably wouldn't notice.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by gweihir ( 88907 )

            They had to make room for the new bloat somehow.

            Now, I honestly don't perceive it as being slower but I'm a sample size of one and my computer is fast enough I probably wouldn't notice.

            I have not tried Win11 and will delay that for as long as possible. But I read some gaming benchmarks that found something like 3..5% speed loss. Too low to notice except in a direct side-by-side comparison.

            • I don't know if that would be before or after the well known AMD fTPM stuttering bug was fixed. But gaming performance is definitely a different matter then web/office/email.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by hjf ( 703092 )

      The new task scheduler that makes use of your E and P cores properly in Intel's 12th generation processors is only available in Windows 11.

      They could have offered it as an update to Windows 10. But they decided not to.

      So, if you have a fancy Core i9 12900K, Windows 10 may be running your game's audio task in a Performance core, and the physics engine in an Efficiency core. Or the opposite: you're browsing the web, it may decide to put your browser on a P-core and draw more power, generate more heat, etc.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by _merlin ( 160982 )

        Remember Windows 7 is just Windows NT 6.1 because they wanted to drop the association with Vista.

        Windows 2000 was NT 5.0, Windows XP was NT 5.1, Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP x64 Edition were NT 5.2 - the version numbering made sense, as they were all relatively minor updates.

        Windows Vista was NT 6.0 as it had big changes in the permissions model, home directory layout, graphics drivers, etc. as well as the big jump in system requirements. Vista got a bad reputation, so NT 6.1 was released as Windows

  • We appear to be entering a period of Windows' development where no more significant features are added so that minor UI tweaks are hyped to justify new releases.

    • Yes! Rounded corners!!! Haven't you been wanting rounded corners on your windows all your life?

      I just noticed that /.'s upper left-hand corner is rounded. Why?

  • Did they bring back (Score:4, Insightful)

    by IWantMoreSpamPlease ( 571972 ) on Friday July 22, 2022 @02:24PM (#62725260) Homepage Journal

    the ability to right click on the taskbar and get the task manager? Because removing that was really a fucking stupid decision.

    Change for change's sake I guess.

    • At least I finally remember the keyboard shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+ESC. Which was always easier than right-clicking the task bar if I could have ever remembered the key combination before.

    • I'm not sure why they removed it, but you can right click on start menu to get to it, so that didn't really bother me.

      What I really miss is the ability to move the task bar to the left side. I don't know why they removed it but I wouldn't have upgraded had I known it. What a waste of space on the bottom.

      • I hate not being able to place taskbar on the side. Nice window titles all displayed compactly clean and simple.

        Home machine has task bar at the bottom.

        RDT to work, task bar on the right

        From there RDT to team server, task bar on the let

        Used to that.

        Make my 48 inch wide landscape desktop look like a 5 inch phone in portrait.

        • "...window titles..." That says it all. Titles, with English words (or whatever language you're using), not ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. What were they thinking?

    • Err what? Just right click the bottom left corner and click task manager. It's still right there. The only way this could be a problem is if your mouse only works up and down and not left and right. And in that case you could just ctrl+shift+esc like a normal person.

      Seriously man there are a LOT of things wrong with the taskbar on windows 11, but this is not one of them.

      Change for change's sake I guess.

      There's no such thing. Change costs money so you don't make change without the expectation to make money.

      There is however change for organi

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by stikves ( 127823 )

      Ctrl-Shift-ESC still works.

      Or right clicking on the Start button (or whatever it is called this iteration).

      That being said...

      Hiding well known menu items, or completely eliminating them is a terrible idea.

  • No descriptive app text on the taskbar? (Score:3)

    by urbanriot ( 924981 ) on Friday July 22, 2022 @02:43PM (#62725322)
    ok, but I'm still not seeing any text that describes the multiple excel spreadsheets I have open so Windows 11 is still worse than Windows 95 in so many ways.
    • Yeah, this. It's garbage for ANY number of apps, unless you never open more than one window of any app. The windows taskbar works so well because it recognizes that windows are what matter. Switching between "apps" only makes sense on phones because windows are one-to-one with apps.

  • did they bring back (Score:3)

    by hackertourist ( 2202674 ) on Friday July 22, 2022 @02:44PM (#62725330)

    the option to have TEXT in the taskbar buttons? That's the default I use on W10: never combine taskbar icons, show document title instead of just the stupid icon. I do far better at recognizing text rather than random squiggles.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dwedit ( 232252 )

      Regardless of what "they" bring back, you can still use https://github.com/valinet/Exp... [github.com]

    • I saw a video that shows all of the third-party tools you can use to restore the functionality that Windows 11 took away. Nothing feels more satisfying than downloading, installing, and running dozens of apps in the background just to add basic functionality back into the OS. And since this functionality wasn't restored by some kind of supported hooks offered by Windows, that means all of these tools likely hack the registry and do who knows what else just to restore a minor feature.

  • translation (Score:3, Insightful)

    by iggymanz ( 596061 ) on Friday July 22, 2022 @02:49PM (#62725356)

    Microsoft will continue to feature churn and get further and further from the simple and extremely efficient text menu items and submenus, instead with incomprehensible icons in mutable positions that is neither discoverable, predictable nor efficient.

    So sad "development" has turned into "feature churning" and eye candy pandering to people who mostly don't do much.

  • add, remove, and generally experiment (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bb_matt ( 5705262 ) on Friday July 22, 2022 @02:52PM (#62725372)

    And therein lies the huge problem that microsoft seem intent on pursuing, a complete lack of continuity.

    It's something which plagues Linux on the Desktop too, but for different reasons - multiple distros, multiple desktops - but as it's generally FOSS, that's a _good_ thing - there's no overriding game plan behind it.

    So, I'll outright say it - and probably get modded down for being a "fanboi", whatever - what I love about macOS is the _continuity_ - they have a way of delivering new features that doesn't outright "throw the baby out with the bathwater" - they keep _familiarity_ as a core concept.
    You can pick up the first iteration of macOS X, run with it - and then install the latest, 21 years later - and it will _still_ make sense.

    _that_ is why I switched to it as my primary OS - plus the fact, that under the hood, it's *nix.

    Microsoft have delivered a ridiculous amount of change to their desktop operating system - hell, let's face it, their _only_ operating system - it all went pear shaped the moment they tried to marry up touch with desktop, in windows 8.

    From win95 right through to win7, there was a familiar interface - the zenith, being win2k - hell, I _loved_ that OS back in the day, it just _worked_.

    Then, with win8, it all went horribly wrong and microsoft have been unable to pick up the ball since then - but it hardly mattered at the time, being the dominant desktop OS.

    I truly _despise_ what windows has become and it actively made me seek out Linux for many years. It became my primary OS.
    Then I just got sick of that.

    I want to do _work_ - I don't really give a flying fuck what OS I use, just so long as it keeps out of my way.

    So, yeah, throw your worst at me, as always, dear slashdot graybeards - macOS is, without doubt, the most continuous desktop OS in terms of user experience - and note, I didn't say "best" - because that's a _very_ personal decision to make.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      To my eyes, any MS OS was always pearshaped compared to MacOS, eye-candy speaking. I like a gui on the OS so I don't have to recall arcane strings of commands.

      What I really miss is MacOS's Commando. Tell it the command you want and it would out up a dialog box with clicky boxes and radio buttons and watch the text command being built. You could either execute it right there or copy/paste it into a script. Beats the wampum out of trying to recall strings for commands.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by marcle ( 1575627 )

      It's not that I love Windows, and I certainly have no love for MS. It's just that there is a huge variety of software available for Windows, much of it very inexpensive or free. And as someone who likes to build their own PCs, I can get a very powerful machine tailored just to my liking for a fraction of what a comparable Mac would cost. Not to mention the wide world of peripherals available for PCs.

      I've found Windows 10 to be quite acceptable for my purposes, which include graphics and audio recording and

    • The problem is worse than that. You can thank the retarded "live service" status of Windows which changes every 6 months for the new task bar.

      The issue is that they re-wrote the Windows 11 taskbar from scratch. That in itself wouldn't be an issue, except they shipped it long before it was feature complete. It's why you can no longer pin items to the task bar, why you can't switch apps while dragging, why the taskbar couldn't go to the left of the screen, why it no longer shows seconds, etc, etc.

      MS's continu

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Duds ( 100634 )

        Don't use the word "retarded".

        • Don't use the word "retarded".

          Why? Are you a live service and thus offended by me calling a live service retarded? Retarded has a definition, it is a word in our language which we can use. Specifically my goal here was to offend the concept of live service as such I used an offensive word which means "stupid" as is written in the dictionary.

          If you have a problem with the way people use language not directed at you then maybe you should work on that.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      I don't know what you are talking about regarding the Linux desktop. My fvwm2 config has been fairly stable for the last 25 years, with one occasion were I needed to move from fvwm to fvwm2. Took me a few hours, but I think that is quite acceptable for 25 years.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Duds ( 100634 )

      As much as anything the problem is they've never committed to anything. You will find Windows 7 era dialog boxes and windows in Windows 11 despite 3 paradigm shift attempts since. Sometimes, as with a lot of the control panel they're literally the only way to do things.

      If they had changed everything at Windows 8. Or 10. Or 11 you may well not like it but at least you'd have a cat in hell's chance of understanding it. Now what you need to do could be in any one of 4 different places (or multiple of those)

  • When I saw the 37in. panel that came with it, I really wasn't all that impressed

  • "We appear to be entering a period of Windows' development where we can expect new features and tweaks"

    Corrected: "We appear to be entering a period of Windows' development where we can expect new bugs and incompatible behavior"

  • ...I've been able to change the interface back to, more or less, win2k without too much fuss through at least windows 10 through using openshell + "7+ Taskbar Tweaker" + reenabling quick launch and getting rid of stupid pinned apps

    The only trick is to disable all updates because those often break these tweaks

  • It's not so annoying that they keep changing things unnecessarily but they actually remove features, like right click to Task Manager. Most recently they completely messed up search. Apparently they are making it more like a web search and less like a local search and you can't configure it otherwise. I had to find a registry entry to fix it so it would just do a local search. Why remove the group policy editing application. I just hate windows more each day,

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      I think it may be an act of desperation. There are some indications that MS has lost control of the Windows software monster. For example, some security patches, for vulnerabilities getting actually exploited, did take very, very long to come out. My take is MS my be trying to regain control by simplifying things. Of course, them beine MS, they do it wrong.

    • The interns in Delhi needed to do something.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
      Ghe thing is yhe ux changes are not unnecesary to the people pushing them: the ux designers/consultants, for them they are essential as they are the once giving them job securety,
  • ... some ancient screen shot for an obscure mfwm or some such window manager that could do it in 1991 ...

  • No drag and drop.
    Doesn't properly support multi-monitor in portrait configuration.
    Application preview is also broken.

  • They re-enable ungrouping of taskbar buttons and the ability to show captions. Until then, I'll run with a start menu replacement on 11....

Slashdot Top Deals

It seems that more and more mathematicians are using a new, high level language named "research student".

Close