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Measuring up Windows 7’s new “super” taskbar

Time: 00:25 EST/05:25 GMT | News Source: istartedsomething | Posted By: Kenneth van Surksum

Long Zheng: One of the most obvious changes you’ll see when you first boot into Windows 7 is the new taskbar dubbed the “superbar”. Most people like it, some don’t, but I think overall its a large improvement over that little strip of screen real estate which has not had a major renovation since Windows XP.

For some users, one hurdle of the new “superbar” is its enormous size, or so it appears. To set the record straight, I conducted a little side-by-side experiment with two quick-launch items and two active applications on both Vista and Windows 7. Together with a measuring tape in one hand and a magnifying glass in the other, I counted. Soon enough, I grew impatient and resorted to Photoshop instead. Here’s how they measured up.

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#1 By 12071 (203.214.144.89) at Monday, January 05, 2009 01:57:56 AM

DeathSeeker's comment summarizes it quite nicely:

"Pixels used in Vista: 13,470
Pixels used for the same task in 7: 20,200
Pixels wasted by increasing the size: 6,730
Functionality gained by increasing the size: None"

i.e. the new taskbar is 50% bigger than Vista's - so you can understand why users are mentioning it's "enormous" size. But... honestly... do people really care THAT much? Yes the icons on the quick launch bit look stupid being so far apart but there's more important things to worry about!

#2 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at Monday, January 05, 2009 09:05:38 AM

I've seen it a few times around the net now that the new Superbar looks a lot like the taskbar in KDE.

#3 By 8556 (74.84.87.66) at Monday, January 05, 2009 12:54:20 PM

I use large icons in Vista's Quick Launch bar and like the tightness of the icon spacing. I do not understand why Vista's large icon size can't be used in Windows 7 for open programs. It's more efficient than what they have chosen to use.

This post was edited by bobsireno on Monday, January 05, 2009 at 13:00.

#4 By 82766 (122.107.48.75) at Tuesday, January 06, 2009 01:11:07 AM

@Chris - as also pointed out, "DeathSeeker" has not compared apples with apples. He's compared the icon only vs the "icon & text" measurements, so they are two entirely differently situations.

@Latch - as its been pointed out many times by KDE users, looks similar-ish but is different, so no comparsions can be made. This is said by KDE users themselves.

The reality is, with screen resolutions increasing almost every six months, who really cares if the taskbar is just a few millimetres larger?? The laptop I've been using for the past two years with Vista, is 1920x1200... its beautiful and frankly, I wouldn't even notice an extra millimetre or two being used vertically.

#5 By 12071 (124.171.23.91) at Tuesday, January 06, 2009 06:07:29 AM

#4 I'm not sure I follow... from what I can see DeathSeeker simply took the "combined width" and multiplied it by the "taskbar height". i.e. Vista = 449 x 30 and Win7 = 505 x 40
So he's completely comparing oranges to oranges with his figures and it is in fact 50% bigger as a result.

Not that it matters as I mentioned before, seriously, a few pixels here and there aren't going to kill you... a piece of sh*t explorer with the world's slowest file copy ala Vista on the other hand will.

#6 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at Tuesday, January 06, 2009 08:23:57 AM

#4: I wasn't trying to make any comparison other than initial visual impact, and I pretty much agree with you regarding resolution and desktop objects scaling with them.

#5: Don't forget the deletes. Multi-select 5+ small files, delete them and watch the time tick by while Vista thinks about it.

#7 By 23275 (24.196.4.141) at Tuesday, January 06, 2009 10:07:23 AM

We'd call it "Bunyan" - as in "Paul Bunyan" where compared to things around it, something looks freakishly big. Needless to say... we'll be adjusting all our Win7 builds to ship with things restored to as small as possble and only combine when the task bar is full.

I get and like the added context menu fucntions and their accessibility, but dang if it doesn't still look quite odd to me and I keep forgetting about the availability of the context menus - so it is less useful than I had thought.

#8 By 8556 (74.84.87.66) at Tuesday, January 06, 2009 10:37:12 AM

#4: Most laptops that people buy today are inexpensive, but still powerful enough to do what they need to do. This week BestBuy has a 15.6" Acer with 2-GHz dual core processor and 2-GB of DDR2 ram for $399. The problem is that this family of cheap machines will only scale to 1920 X 1080 or 1920 x 1200 when connected to an HDTV. The icons on the TV look small. On the screen they look large. It's all relative. While everyone would love to drive a nicer car than the one they have and computer users would all want to buy a kick-ass notebook like yours, most don't have it in their budget to do so. Therefore, the option to make taskbar icons tighter would be a nice addtion, that I don't expect to see happen. We'll all get by and in a couple of years Windows 7's fit and finish will be the paradigm.

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