shapeshifter Wrote:This has been suggested before, and I believe it is in the works.
I'm glad to hear TrueSoft is dissatisfied with Microsoft's taskbar properties. Here are some taskbar improvement ideas from an engineer who has a _lot_ of application-specific windows to keep track of and access rapidly. These could all be implemented as user-specified options to Microsoft's default, which is just a left-justified display of application window titlebars. A noteworthy alternative is to absorb taskbar display functions into a True Launch Bar toolbar/menuing structure.
The motivation for these ideas as a whole is to put enough of the "right" information on the taskbar for each application window to allow me to instantly recognize it as my eye scans the taskbar buttons.
- Automatic taskbar grow/shrink. -- When the taskbar exceeds or falls below a limit on the number of window titlebars displayed per row, it should grow or shrink automatically.
- String stripping. -- Remove irrelevant parts of window titlebars before display in taskbar.
- String windowing. -- Control which part of window titlebar string is displayed.
- Font control. -- Use different fonts as required by different taskbar buttons.
- Button size control. -- Different applications need different character string space for their taskbar buttons.
- Icon control. -- Change application-window-specific button icons at will.
- Color control. -- Change application-window-specific button colors at will.
- Application window grouping. -- Display windows from the same application together, according to the user's display rules, whenever the same application shows multiple windows.
- Priority button display. -- Specify specific application window title is always leftmost, topmost, first/second/third, etc. taskbar button.
- A True Launch Bar for open windows. -- Absorb taskbar's window title display responsibilities into a TLB toolbar/menuing structure.
I like the last idea the best, but I'm sure there are others.