Practicing the Black Art (05/02)
Windows XP Taskbar
by Vinny La Bash, vlabash@comcast.net
Member of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc.
In Windows 98 the Taskbar had lots of function, which most of us didn't use. Then Microsoft decided to give it an extensive cosmetic make over and even more capabilities in XP. Still, all most of us do with the Taskbar is notice that it's on the bottom of our screen and click on the Start button from time-to-time.
The Start button, now a bright green, invites you to go there, as if it were saying "Come here, friend." (Relax, I'm not going to get carried away.) It's a nice touch. Everything in XP is brighter and more colorful. The Taskbar as a whole has a pleasing way of separating its individual components by color.
The Tray, located on the right of the Taskbar, varies in size depending on the number of miniature icons it holds and whether these items are active. The Taskbar menu contains a new item, Lock the Taskbar, which freezes the Taskbar at its current location and prevents you from accidentally moving or minimizing it.
This is a welcome feature. You can use it to lock in the configuration of the Windows XP taskbar, and Microsoft has extended the feature to work anywhere you have a toolbar. There are very few applications and utilities that work without the aid of toolbars, making this feature available almost universally throughout XP. Internet Explorer is a good example. Right click the toolbar and select Lock Toolbars. Unless you go back and change it, you won't accidentally undo your carefully constructed toolbar arrangement.
It seems every program you install puts an icon in the Tray. In Windows XP only the icons that have been used recently are displayed. Position your mouse cursor over the funny looking button by the left side of the Tray that Microsoft refers to as the "notification area expansion icon" and a sign pops up telling you to click on the button and "Show hidden icons". The hidden icons will be displayed for a few seconds and then slide back out of view.
Specific settings for all the possible icons in this area can be made in the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box. Examine the dialog box by right-clicking the Start menu, clicking Properties, and then clicking the Taskbar tab.
In case you missed it in the Taskbar menu, the first option gives you another chance to Lock the Taskbar into place along with any customization you might have made.
Auto-hide the taskbar works the same in XP as it did in Windows 98. The Taskbar "hides" when you're not using it, and comes back into view when you move your mouse pointer to the bottom of the screen.
Keep the taskbar on top of other windows simply means that the Taskbar will always be available even if any windows are maximized. The Auto-hide option will override this choice.
Group similar taskbar buttons may sound cryptic but is new, simple, and useful. If you had more than a half dozen Web site windows open at once in Windows 98, there was a button for each one on the Taskbar, and the buttons were too small to display the name of the window, making movement among them clumsy. I often have many Internet sites open at the same time, and having a button on the taskbar for each window leaves little room for anything else. Windows XP groups those messages together on one Internet Explorer button. Left click the button and select from the list of the open windows.
Show Quick launch lets you turn the Quick Launch Bar on or off. You can also do this from the Taskbar Popup menu.
Show the clock is self-explanatory. Perhaps you want to turn the clock display off to make room for more icons on the Tray. Yeah, right.
You probably want to Hide inactive icons to leave room to display buttons for open windows on the Taskbar.
Switch to the Start Menu tab and tell XP how many icons to display of the programs you use most frequently. The default value is six, but XP will let you go as high as thirty. If you do get irrationally exuberant, change to Small icons so they will fit on the menu. Decide if you want to display your browser and mail client on the Start Menu or leave room for other things.
If you're feeling adventurous, switch over to the Advanced tab. Here you can choose to display the Control Panel icon as a link to the Control Panel window or remove it from the Start Menu altogether. A third option allows you to display all the icons in the Control Panel group when you move your mouse pointer over the Control Panel icon in the Start Menu. You have the same options with the My Computer, My Documents, My Music and the Network Connections icons.
Taskbar Grouping and Notification Area Enhancements are the only real new additions to the Taskbar. Other selections have been moved to the Taskbar from other areas in windows, provided with enhanced capabilities or both. There is a lot of power in the Windows XP Taskbar. Use it! :
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Copyright 2002. This article is from the May 2002 issue of the Sarasota PC Monitor, the official monthly publication of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc., P.O. Box 15889, Sarasota, FL 34277-1889. Permission to reprint is granted only to other non-profit computer user groups, provided proper credit is given to the author and our publication. We would appreciate receiving a copy of the publication the reprint appears in, please send to above address, Attn: Editor. For further information about our group, email: admin@spcug.org/ Web: http://www.spcug.org/
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