AmigaOS featured various third party implementations of the taskbar concept, and this inheritance is present also in its successors. For example, AmiDock, born as third-party utility, has then been integrated into AmigaOS 3.9 and AmigaOS 4.0.[6] The AROS operating system has its version of Amistart that is provided with the OS and free to be installed by users, while MorphOS has been equipped with a dock utility just like in AmigaOS or Mac OS X.
The default settings for the Taskbar in Microsoft Windows place it at the bottom of the screen and includes from left to right the Start menu button, Quick Launch bar, taskbar buttons, and notification area. The Quick Launch toolbar was added with the Windows Desktop Update and is not enabled by default in Windows XP. Windows 7 removed the Quick Launch feature in favor of pinning applications to the taskbar itself. In Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, a hotspot located in the bottom-left corner of the screen replaced the Start button, although this change was reverted in Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2.
The Windows taskbar can be modified by users in several ways. The position of the taskbar can be changed to appear on any edge of the primary display (except in Windows 11, where the taskbar is permanently fixed at the bottom of the screen and cannot be moved to the top, left, or right side). Up to and including Windows Server 2008, the taskbar is constrained to single display, although third-party utilities such as UltraMon allow it to span multiple displays. When the taskbar is displayed vertically on versions of Windows prior to Windows Vista, the Start menu button will only display the text "Start" or translated equivalent if the taskbar is wide enough to show the full text.[27] However, the edge of the taskbar (in any position) can be dragged to control its height (width for a vertical taskbar); this is especially useful for a vertical taskbar to show window titles next to the window icons.
Users can resize the height (or width when displayed vertically) of the taskbar up to half of the display area. To avoid inadvertent resizing or repositioning of the taskbar, Windows XP and later lock the taskbar by default.[28][29] When unlocked, "grips" are displayed next to the movable elements which allow grabbing with the mouse to move and size. These grips slightly decrease amount of available space in the taskbar.
The taskbar as a whole can be hidden until the mouse pointer is moved to the display edge, or has keyboard focus. The Windows 7+ taskbar does not allow pinning any arbitrary folder to the taskbar, it gets pinned instead to the jumplist of a pinned Explorer shortcut, however third party utilities such as Winaero's Taskbar Pinner can be used to pin any type of shortcut to the Taskbar.[30]
Other toolbars, known as "Deskbands", may be added to the taskbar.[31] This feature, along with many other taskbar features is currently absent in Windows 11. Windows includes the following deskbands but does not display them by default (except the Quick Launch toolbar in certain versions and configurations).
Users can add additional toolbars that display the contents of folders. The display for toolbars that represent folder items (such as Links, Desktop and Quick Launch) can be changed to show large icons and the text for each item. Prior to Windows Vista, the Desktop Toolbars could be dragged off the taskbar and float independently, or docked to a display edge. Windows Vista greatly limited, but did not eliminate the ability to have desktop toolbar not attached to the taskbar.[33] Windows 7 has deprecated the use of Floating Deskbands altogether; they only appear pinned into the Taskbar.
Classic Mac OS did not display a taskbar onscreen by default. Application switching prior to Mac OS 8.5 was done by clicking on an application's window or via a pull-down menu at the right end of the menu bar. Prior to version 8.5 the menu's title was the icon of the foreground application. Version 8.5 introduced the ability to optionally also display the application name and to "tear off" the menu by dragging the title with the mouse. The torn off menu was displayed as a palette. The palette window could be configured using AppleScript to appear much like a taskbar, with no title bar and fixed to one edge of the screen. No control panel was provided by Apple to access this functionality, but third-party developers quickly wrote applications that allowed users unfamiliar with AppleScript to customize their application palettes. Third party taskbars such as DragThing were a popular category of shareware on these systems.
The Dock, as featured in macOS and its predecessor NeXTSTEP, is also a kind of taskbar. The macOS Dock is application-oriented instead of window-oriented. Each running application is represented by one icon in the Dock regardless of how many windows it has on screen. A textual menu can be opened by right-clicking on the dock icon that gives access to an application's windows. Mac OS X 10.2 added the ability for an application to add items of its own to this menu. Minimized windows also appear in the dock, in the rightmost section, represented by a real-time graphical thumbnail of the window's contents. The trash can is also represented in the Dock, as a universal metaphor for deletion. For example, dragging selected text to the trash should remove the text from the document and create a clipping file in the trash.
In KDE Plasma 5, taskbar uses Widgets as elements in taskbar. In the update 5.20 (November 2020) they updated the taskbar to look more like Windows 10 by only displaying icons by default and grouping application windows together.[35]
GNOME 2 used its own type of taskbar, known as panels (the program responsible for them is therefore called gnome-panel). By default, GNOME 2 usually contains two full-width panels at the top and bottom of the screen. The top panel usually contains navigation menus labeled Applications, Places, and System in that order. These menus hold links to common applications, areas of the file system, and system preferences and administration utilities, respectively.
In GNOME 3, panels are replaced by GNOME Shell, which consists of a bar across the top of the screen with an Activities button on the left, a clock in the centre, and a notification area on the right. GNOME Shell does not contain a traditional taskbar; users can manage windows, virtual desktops, and launch applications from either a "Dash" on the side of the screen, or by searching from Activities Overview, which is displayed by clicking on the Activities button. GNOME 3.8 introduces Classic Mode, which re-implements certain aspects of GNOME 2's desktop as an alternate desktop environment that can be selected at the login screen.[36]
Customize the taskbar from the taskbar itself. If you want to change multiple aspects of the taskbar at one time, use Taskbar settings. Press and hold (or right-click) any empty space on the taskbar, and then select Taskbar settings.
Search on the taskbar can be set in four ways: either to Search box, which includes a full text box to enter your search (or your Bing Chat prompt; see Using the new Bing on the Windows taskbar for more) into plus additional search highlights, Search icon and label (displaying as a search icon and Search label), Search icon only (just the icon) or Hide (completely hidden).
Press and hold (or right-click) any empty space on the taskbar, select Taskbar settings, select Taskbar behaviors, then choose Select the far corner of the taskbar to show the desktop.
Open Taskbar settings
You can hide the taskbar both in desktop mode and tablet mode. Press and hold (or right-click) any empty space on the taskbar, select Taskbar settings, select Taskbar behaviors, and select Automatically hide the taskbar.
When you disconnect or fold back the keyboard on your 2-in-1 device, you'll now see the tablet-optimized taskbar in the latest versions of Windows 11. This taskbar has two states: collapsed and expanded. In the collapsed state, the taskbar is minimized so you can focus on your task, but you can still see critical status icons like the time or battery level. When you need to use the taskbar, swipe up from the bottom to see the expanded state that has a touch-friendly design with larger icons. When you launch an app, the taskbar will automatically collapse again.
You can show seconds alongside hours and minutes in your system tray clock on the taskbar. Press and hold (or right-click) any empty space on the taskbar, then select Taskbar settings > Taskbar behaviors, and then check Show seconds in system tray clock.
Pin an app directly to the taskbar for quick access when you're on the desktop. (Or unpin it, if you want.) You can do it from Start or the Jump List, which is a list of shortcuts to recently opened files, folders, and websites.
Customize the taskbar from the taskbar itself. If you want to change multiple aspects of the taskbar at one time, use Taskbar settings. Press and hold (or right-click) any empty space on the taskbar, and then select Taskbar settings .
Typically, the taskbar is at the bottom of the desktop, but you can also move it to either side or the top of the desktop. When the taskbar is unlocked, you can change its location. See the Lock and unlock the taskbar section to find out if yours is locked. When you've confirmed that your taskbar is unlocked, you can change its location.
Like many other changes in the taskbar, you'll need to first unlock the taskbar. Then, move the pointer over the border of the taskbar until the pointer turns into a double arrow. Drag the border to the size you want and release.
When taskbar is full. This setting shows each window as an individual, labeled button. When the taskbar becomes crowded, apps with multiple open windows collapse into a single app button. Select the button to see a list of the windows that are open.
dca57bae1f