Windows 7 superbar dock

In the first part of this series , we had a brief look into the history of the dock and Windows 7 superbar. Today, we will go through some of the basic functionalities that both dock and superbar provide and have in common. The dock can hold any number of items and resize them dynamically to fit while using magnification to clarify smaller resized items. Applications that do not normally keep icons in the dock will still appear when running and remain until they are quit.

When you quit an application whose icon resides in the dock, the indicator disappears. When you quit an application whose icon doesn't reside in the dock, its icon also disappears from the dock.

The left side holds only applications, running or otherwise. The right side of the dock is for "everything else": files, minimized windows, stacks, and the trash. The sides are separated by a vertical crosswalk. Icons and stacks can be rearranged within their limits on each side. Drag anything off the dock from either side, and a small "poof" of smoke appears, indicating that the user is about to erase that item from the dock though not permanently from the system.

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The OS X Dock operates from a similar standpoint, but Windows 7 takes this not to mention the translucency gambit a step further: The visual signification of a running application versus one that's not and merely "pinned" to the taskbar is exceptionally subtle—a kind of "glare" appears on the top left corner of the icon and it's faintly outlined. It borders on actively encouraging you to forget the distinction, which as computers become more powerful and applications launch more quickly, matters less and less anyhow.

The flashing colored glass effect when an app is trying to get your attention, however, is nice, and though way less ostentatious than the old blinking button, definitely obvious. Unless you have the taskbar set to auto-hide, then the notification is barely visible as a flashing line of color on the bottom of your screen.

The Mac Dock's bouncing icons definitely works better there. These aesthetic similarities aside, what actually makes the superbar superior to the Dock is window management—including, by extension, application management. I can easily find, access or close any window I want from the taskbar nearly instantly, thanks to the combination of live thumbnails and Aero Peek. Rolling over an icon in the taskbar pops up live thumbnails of every open window of that app. If that's not enough to tell which one you want, rolling over a thumbnail brings that window to the front, full-sized, and makes every other window translucent.

And it's easy to move from app to app in one motion to bring up the window you want, or close it. This is not just a neat visual trick, like Flip 3D. It's genuinely useful. The benefit breaks down if you have more open windows of an application than the number of previews that will fit across your screen horizontally: In that case, you get a much less useful list of open windows, like old school Windows or control-clicking a Dock icon on the Mac.