Enable the Awesome Bar in Windows 7 M3

"Awesome bar" oh please. This is a copy of Apple's Dock. Plain and simple. Like most things coming from Microsoft.

Paul, did you find this chap just to prove a point? :-) How's the performance so far, by the way?

Very cool, Paul. Can't wait for the beta! @robertsjoe said: "Awesome bar" oh please. This is a copy of Apple's Dock. Plain and simple. Like most things coming from Microsoft. Is that all you can say? This is a copy of Apple, that is a copy of Apple. Next thing you'll say, Microsoft Office is a copy of something Apple did. Yet the GUI interface that Apple copied from Xerox Star and the Palo Alto Research Lab, nobody ever mentions that. There are lot of things that Apple didn't do first and this argument is getting stale. Apple borrows a lot of tech for its OS and computers. Give credit to the other companies where its due.

@robertsjoe: Yeah. Major rip off the Mac OS X Dock! Even one of Microsoft's employee's confirmed that MS copied the Dock. The presentation is really good but skip to 4:42: http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/PC24/ There it is, the Dock... when Microsoft so ripped of off OS X... ripped it off by about 15 years before it made on to SO X. Dude! Really.

Damn, MS changed the only thing I liked better in their shell compared to OSX : the clickable windows button, and now they have the OSX-style icon only switching taskbar... NOOoooo... Well I guess (and hope) they will be a way to revert to the old way of switching widows.

Raf's a genius! Also, on the topic of MS stealing stuff from OSX (thank you, robertsjoe), Apple stole the GUI from Xerox (I think), they stole search from MS and managed to implement it quicker. I don't really care, my point is this: The world is better when we steal ideas from each other. Would you really suggest that Xerox should be the only company allowed to market an OS with a GUI? As a Windows user, if Apple has a feature, i don't care if they tell Steve Jobs they'll bring it right back as soon as they're finished. Steal it, borrow it, copy it, I don't care. Just make sure it's in the next edition of Windows that I buy, otherwise I'm going to the other guy. If Pepsi didn't steal Coke, we'd be paying more for Coke. If Apple didn't buy Next, you'd have no OSX, and probably no Apple. You think Google was the first company on the internet to do Search? etc

Confirmed works on x64!

"They tend to take existing technology and present it in a more usable fashion" In other words they STEAL peoples inventions!!!!!!!! Grrrrrrr! Evil Apple!!!!!!! /s So you prove our point that all companies put new spins on ideas. Apple doing it doesn't make it ok, while Microsoft doing it is horrible crime. Oh thank you fellow Apple user for completely derailing another topic.

"Apple doing it doesn't make it ok, while Microsoft doing it is horrible crime." Hey jacka$$, that's not what I said at all. Read my words (or, as mikegalos says, do I need to type slower?). What did I say about Microsoft adopting aspects of the Apple dock? "Good for them." I actually agree with RTE, who said, "If MS can find a way to combine the two, then good on them." Or as Caribou Barbie would say, "You Betcha!" I can't even parse what you're trying to say, to be honest. My suggestion? Go back to your cave and eat your mastodon. @daveinla: "Well I guess (and hope) they will be a way to revert to the old way of switching widows." Why do you want to switch widows? Not happy with the one you have? ;-)

rafael rafael rafaerl :D

I'm not so sure that there will be much confusion about switching to running programs or launching that program. Either way, the end result is that you've (effectively) switched to that program, or window. The only thing I can imagine being a bit of a stepping stone is "how do I know if all my programs are closed?"

@lotsamystuff And precisely where did I say YOU said that? In case your jacka$$ shades are still on, take them off and read what I wrote again: " So you prove our point that all companies put new spins on ideas..." (see how I agreed with your point?) " Apple doing it doesn't make it ok, while Microsoft doing it is horrible crime." Which is what exactly robertsjoe was trolling about when he said: "Awesome bar" oh please. This is a copy of Apple's Dock. Plain and simple. Like most things coming from Microsoft. "

By the way, this approach works well for single instance applications. What if a user wants to open a new IE window? Or a new Word instance?

Oh, my. "Also, on the topic of MS stealing stuff from OSX (thank you, robertsjoe), Apple stole the GUI from Xerox (I think), they stole search from MS and managed to implement it quicker." Uh, do you realize how little sense this makes? Apple implemented it quicker. This is another way of saying they did it first. Besides, the idea of "search" was all over the place for years. The old Mac OS had "search" in various forms. OS X 10.0 shipped with Unix search tools (locate) which in turn had been around for years. Stole search. Geez. Paul's right about mixing running and not running apps in the dock/taskbar. It's stupid and confusing to users. The idea of using dock space for frequently used apps is just bad, although not quite as bad as the Windows tendency (and sometimes OS X users do it to) to clutter the desktop with dozens of shortcuts/aliases. What is the point of a pretty desktop covered with that crap? The better way is to use the Dock/Taskbar as a visual cue for the apps that are running. Launch apps via Spotlight---I assume the Windows search tools can do the same---or addons like Quicksilver, Butler, Launchbar or the Windows equivalents. This is actually much faster than any point and click system, and seems consistent with the Windows tradition of allowing keyboard access to everything.

"The only thing I can imagine being a bit of a stepping stone is "how do I know if all my programs are closed?"" I had to watch the video in full to see the functionality. It's already done, and you don't need an overlay sub-icon at all as I previously suggested. Running programs show up as a framed button (ie. more 3D). One question comes to mind though: Will Windows 7 actually run on non-Direct3D9 hardware?

Does anybody see this as the real first step into a whole new computing paradigm, where storage memory and processing memory become one and the same? The first time I saw this was on Windows Mobile, where RAM is divided up. Essentially, you have half the RAM as a flash drive, the other is for processing that same program information. What happens when you can just take the "storage bits", and process them directly by "turning them on", from the same space? Well, for one, it takes a whole new method of thinking about software development, doesn't it?

Judging purely from the snapshots I've seen, am I the only one who thinks the taskbar looks terrible. While its sexy from a marketing perspective, the semi translucent glassy look makes the contrast between the icons and background hard on the eyes. It's too tall. I want all my desktop for my applications. I could enable auto-hide. I assume this feature is still there. Hopefully we'll be able to choose different heights. Nothing visually differentiates the start orb from app icons and shortcuts. They're all about the same size, color, and have similar visual embellishments. I thought the Vista start orb was well done and really emphasized its importance to novice users. As a software developer, I always use this test when creating the UI: "Would my not so computer savvy grandmother be able to figure this out?" I'm not sure the answer is yes in this case. Like others, I agree that mixing the running apps with the shortcuts is terrible. The box around the running app icon just doesn't do it for me. It doesn't scream running app to me and it looks terrible. I have a suggestion for MS if they insist on mixing shortcuts and running apps as we see in the current build. Make the shortcut (non-running apps) icons gray or some monochromatic color that blends with the task bar color palette and the running apps their full color. This fits in nicely with the "light up" marketing phrase that's been used to talk about W7. I personally like the black reflective taskbar in Vista. Its easy to see the icons and text, yet it seems to be unobtrusive visually. Maybe this is because I have a monitor that has black trim immediately around the display surface. I hope we'll have an option to switch to the look of the Vista style taskbar. I have the same desires as others: be able to reorder the task buttons, keep tray icons under control, etc. I'd still like to see these features.

Hey, 39:10. Shoutout to Paul!

"It's too tall. I want all my desktop for my applications. I could enable auto-hide. I assume this feature is still there." It is. "Hopefully we'll be able to choose different heights." Small and large icons. It's still there. DPI settings will affect that too. "I thought the Vista start orb was well done and really emphasized its importance to novice users." As the video suggests, make a good app, and a pretty icon, and users will want to pin it to the taskbar. That makes YOUR program more important. Watch the video. "The box around the running app icon just doesn't do it for me. It doesn't scream running app to me and it looks terrible." It doesn't need to. That's the point. "I hope we'll have an option to switch to the look of the Vista style taskbar." You do. "I have the same desires as others: be able to reorder the task buttons, keep tray icons under control, etc. I'd still like to see these features." Many of them are still there. As I said before: Watch the video. It makes more sense from a development standpoint, and there are many new features available to you to make it easier for end-users.

"One thing I really do wonder about though, is, do you get a border or frame for every instance of a running program, or just the one, to show that it's running. I mean, if you get a new border for every instance, and you have a a handful of instances, then it could look messy very quick." When you have multiple instances or supported tabs (like IE's tabs), it will show up as a layered button border, similar to a stack of window panes. There is a limit to the number of stacks, so it's not going to show you like 17 layered buttons. I think it's 3 or 4 maximum - just enough to show you that multiple instances are running. Single instances only show up as a single window pane-styled button. "if you click on the actual icon itself, it will open up another instance, but if you mouse over the icon, then choose a current instance, then you switch to that." That's right, according to the video.

"Software designed by consensus and popular opinion? Yes, please continue comparing Microsoft's software development to the Nielsen ratings. It explains why Vista is the OS equivalent of Britney Spears and "Dancing With The Stars"." As opposed to Poopertino force-feeding it down your throat. Ya, that's why Snow Leopard is just a bunch of bug fixes with no new features. On a related note: I like fois gras. It's good on cake.

Don't be silly, Wae has a snow leopard fixin hiz cabl teevee. Wae knows exactly what snow leopard is.

"Rather than focusing primarily on new features, Snow Leopard will enhance the performance of OS X, set a new standard for quality and lay the foundation for future OS X innovation." Apple Press Release, June 9, 2008

Waethorn wrote: "...is just a bunch of bug fixes with no new features." **************** mikegalos@msn.com said: "Rather than focusing PRIMARILY on new features, Snow Leopard will enhance the performance of OS X, set a new standard for quality and lay the foundation for future OS X innovation." Emphasis mine. Come back and play again, and again neither one or you have seen it, so continue to speculate.

"If Steve is wrong, what else could he be wrong about?...." I guess he's just a LIAR!