The taskbar is a graphical user interface element that has been part of Microsoft Windows since Windows 95, displaying and facilitating switching between running programs. The taskbar and the associated Start Menu were created and named in 1993 by Daniel Oran, a program manager at Microsoft who had previously collaborated on great ape language research with the behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner at Harvard.
The taskbar is an exemplar of a category of always-visible graphical user interface elements that provide access to fundamental operating system functions and information. At the time of its introduction in 1995, the taskbar was unique among such elements because it provided the user with a means of switching between running programs through a single click of the pointing device.
Since the introduction of Windows 95, other operating systems have incorporated graphical user interface elements that closely resemble the taskbar or have similar features. The designs vary, but generally include a strip along one edge of the screen. Icons or textual descriptions on this strip correspond to open windows. Clicking the icons or text enables the user to easily switch between windows, with the active window often appearing differently from the others on the strip. In some versions of recent operating systems, users can "pin" programs or files to this strip for quick access. In many cases, there is also a notification area, which includes interactive icons that display real-time information about the computer system and some of the running programs.
With the rapid evolution of operating systems and graphical user interfaces, items that are native to each operating system have been included in the various designs incorporated by many companies to make navigating software easier for the everyday user, bridging the gap between normal people and complex code.
Antecedents
Windows 1.0 Windows 1.0, released in 1985, features a horizontal bar located at the bottom of the screen where running programs reside when minimized (referred to as "iconization" at the time), represented by icons. A window can be minimized by double-clicking its title bar, dragging it onto an empty spot on the bar, or by issuing a command from one of its menus. A minimized window is restored by double-clicking its icon or dragging the icon out of the bar.
The bar features multiple slots for icons and expands vertically to provide the user with more rows as more slots are needed. Its color is the same as that of the screen background, which can be customized. Minimized windows can be freely placed in any of the empty slots. Program windows cannot overlap the bar unless maximized.
The Start button did not make an appearance in these early implementations of the taskbar, and would be introduced at a much later date with the release of Windows 95.
Arthur Another early implementation can be seen in the Arthur operating system from Acorn Computers. It is called the icon bar and remains an essential part of Arthur's succeeding RISC OS operating system. The icon bar holds icons which represent mounted disc drives and RAM discs, running applications and system utilities. These icons have their own context-sensitive menus and support drag and drop behaviour.
Amiga 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.Amiga Amidock Homepage 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.
Microsoft Windows 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 95 taskbar buttons evolved from an earlier task-switching design by Daniel Oran, a program manager at Microsoft, that featured file-folder-like tabs across the top of the screen, similar to those that later appeared in web browsers. For this reason, the taskbar was originally intended to be at the top of the screen. But the final configuration of Windows 95 put the taskbar at the bottom of the screen, replacing a user interface element called the tray that had been borrowed from Microsoft's Cairo project. Windows 95 OSR 2.5 would add the Quick Launch toolbar.
With the release of Windows XP, Microsoft changed the behavior of the taskbar to take advantage of Fitts's law by removing a border of pixels surrounding the Start button which did not activate the menu, allowing the menu to be activated by clicking directly in the corner of the screen. Icons in the notification area could now be hidden to save space and revealed with the arrow button. For Windows Vista, the taskbar remained functionally the same but received a visual overhaul to align the new Windows Aero design language, introducing transparency effects to the taskbar, and a Start orb without "start" text that now slightly overlapped the content displayed above the taskbar. With Windows 7 saw the first major redesign of the taskbar since its introduction with larger app icons, the ability to pin apps to the taskbar so that they are shown even if they are not active, and hiding app names by default. Quick Launch was also disabled by default. Users still had the option to show the app names again and reduce the taskbar height to create a taskbar similar to the design used in Windows Vista. At the right side of the taskbar, the Aero Peak button was added, allowing users to quickly view the contents of the desktop and their widgets by hovering over the button, or minimize all apps by clicking on it. Windows 8 introduced no functional changes to the taskbar, but replaced the Start button and Aero Peek button with hot corners for desktop users. Tablet users could now use the Charms bar. Windows 8.1 restored the Start button, and with Windows 8.1 Update, it was now possible to see Metro apps on the taskbar and pin them, as well as to access the taskbar while on the Start screen.
Windows 10, version 1507 added various major changes to the taskbar. A search bar was now shown by default that could be replaced with a search button or be hidden, when Cortana was available, the search function was replaced with the digital assistant. The Task View button allowed users to quickly view their running apps and desktops. A button to open the Action Center was also added on the left hand side of the clock, before being moved to the right hand side in Windows 10, version 1607. Additionally, the taskbar would now change when Windows was set to tablet mode, hiding the pinned and running apps and collapsing the search bar into a search icon. It would also show a back button.
Taskbar elements The Start button, a button that invokes the Start menu (or the Start screen in Windows 8.1). It appears in Windows 9x, Windows NT 4.0 and all its successors, except Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012. The Quick Launch bar, introduced on Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 through the Windows Desktop Update for Internet Explorer 4 and bundled with Windows 95 OSR 2.5 Windows 98, contains shortcuts to applications. Windows provides default entries, such as Launch Internet Explorer Browser, and the user or third-party software may add any further shortcuts that they choose. A single click on the application's icon in this area launches the application. This section may not always be present: for example it is turned off by default in Windows XP and Windows 7. The Windows shell places a taskbar button on the taskbar whenever an application creates an unowned window: that is, a window that does not have a parent and that is created according to normal Windows user interface guidelines. Typically all Single Document Interface applications have a single taskbar button for each open window, although modal windows may also appear there. Windows 98 and Windows Desktop Update for Windows 95 introduced the ability to minimize foreground windows by clicking their button on the taskbar. They also introduced DeskBands (band objects).Creating Custom Explorer Bars, Tool Bands, and Desk Bands Windows 2000 introduced balloon notifications. Windows Me added an option to disable moving or resizing the taskbar. Windows XP introduced taskbar grouping, which can group the taskbar buttons of several windows from the same application into a single button. This button pops up a menu listing all the grouped windows when clicked. This keeps the taskbar from being overcrowded when many windows are open at once. Windows Vista introduced window previews which show thumbnail views of the application in real-time. This capability is provided by the Desktop Window Manager. When pointing to the Start button, its tooltip now says simply "Start" instead of "Click here to begin". Windows 7 introduced jumplists which are menus that provide shortcuts to recently opened documents, frequently opened documents, folders paths (in case of Windows Explorer), or various options (called Tasks) which apply to that specific program or pinned website shortcut. Jump lists appear when the user right-clicks on an icon in the taskbar or drags the icon upwards with the mouse left click. Recent and frequent files and folders can be pinned inside the jump list. Windows 7 introduced the ability to pin applications to the taskbar so that buttons for launching them appear when they are not running. Previously, the Quick Launch was used to pin applications to the taskbar; however, running programs appeared as a separate button. Windows 7 removed several classic taskbar features. Windows 11 removed taskbar grouping, possibly to have the functionality to move the taskbar to the left side of the screen, etc., but the old taskbar could be reactivated. are minimized functional, long-running programs, such as Windows Media Player. Programs that minimize to deskbands are not displayed in the taskbar.