Windows 7 In-Depth Overview and Screenshots: More About Pow than Wow

UI Improvements If you glance at a system running the pre-beta Windows 7, you’d probably think it was Vista at first glance. The major graphical elements of the desktop and the windows themselves look pretty much identical to Vista. The start menu button, the minimize/maximize/close buttons on windows, and the desktop icons all look the same. The boot-up and shutdown processes have some different graphics and Windows 7 logos in them, but if you blink you’ll miss them. So what’s different in the UI? The taskbar and tray have undergone some significant tweaks, and window dragging offers some neat conveniences. The Taskbar In the demo we were shown, but not in the pre-beta Windows 7 install we received, the taskbar has the following new features:

• The Aero glass color carries over to the taskbar for a snazzier look.
• Icons can be rearranged so if you want your Microsoft Word window closest to the start button, you can just drag it over there.
• Great preview feature lets you see thumbnail previews of all open windows in a given application as you hover over its taskbar icon (see screenshot below). We also saw a demo of this with the previews enlarged so you can page through a full-size version of all your open Word docs or sites in IE and quickly select the one you want to display. This is a great feature for multitaskers who have tons of windows open at once and lose track of them.

  

• Jump lists help you open recent files or common tasks from either the taskbar or from the Start menu without opening an application window. For example, you’ll be able to right-click on the Word icon in the taskbar and see a list of recent documents you can open. If app developers do nothing at all, the list of recent apps will be available in the jump list. However, they can choose to expand the functionality by putting other functions (e.g., create a new e-mail in Outlook) on the list.

The Tray Microsoft says that one of the most common UI complaints they receive is about the amount of “noise” in the system tray. Today, it seems like every application wants to plant its tiny flag in the tray and then scream at users with annoying notifications like “download the latest version of our software right away” or “don’t you want to turn on this feature you purposely turned off?” Microsoft is taking some big steps to “quiet” the system tray by giving users an unprecedented level of control over not only what icons are displayed but what notifications are allowed to interrupt you. Even Windows’ own security and update messages can be quieted and dealt with later when the user has time to deal with them. The OS provides a neat Windows Solution Center application that shows all pending alerts from the operating system and lets you resolve them at your convenience. Just as Solution Center lets you deal with suppressed Windows alerts at your convenience, a little arrow lets you view and click all the icons you banished from the tray, just in case you want to check in on them. UAC Quiets Down, Too When Microsoft first introduced User Account Control, the security feature that prompts you for permission to perform tasks, such as installing apps, many users had the same averse reaction as to a nagging mother: they said “okay” without thinking about it, or simply turned the feature off. With Windows 7, you get a slider bar that lets you decide how aggressive UAC should be. You can turn it off or set it to a level where Its less of a nag and more of a trusted adviser. Peek: Show Desktop Made Convenient The Show Desktop feature, which allows you to minimize all windows and quickly get an unobstructed view of your desktop, has been around for several versions of Windows now, but Windows 7 adds a new twist called “Peek.” To the right of system clock is a small, translucent square. Hovering over it temporarily hides all your windows, while clicking on it minimizes everything.

Easy “Snap-to” Window Sizing and Placement We can’t tell you how many times we’ve wasted precious minutes trying to get two windows to line up next to each other on the desktop so we can look at them side-by-side. One of our favorite features of Windows 7 is its ability to easily make a window snap to half of the screen. Just start dragging any window off the left or right side of the desktop and, when your cursor hits that invisible wall at the end of the desktop, the window will resize to take up exactly 50% of the screen and snap itself to the side you dragged it to. When you drag a window off the top of the screen, it maximizes, effectively “snapping” to the top of the desktop. While this looks nice, it’s less interesting than the side anchoring, because it has the same effect as hitting the maximize button, something that’s been around since the dawn of Windows. Multi-Touch Features For tablets or touchscreen PCs, Windows 7 now supports a wide range of touch and multi-touch gestures, including:

• Zooming in/out on an image by moving fingers closer together or further apart
• Right-clicking by holding one finger on the target and tapping with another
• Getting a jump menu by swiping upward
• Clicking links, tabs, and scrolling in IE via touch
• Drawing in Windows Paint with two fingers

Microsoft has also made some subtle UI tweaks to support touch. When you tap the screen, a few things happen:

• A water drop appears to show you where you’ve touched;
• The cursor disappears until you move the mouse again (because you don’t need a cursor when you’re using your fingers);
• Menus you launch with touch are bigger so they’re easier to tap.

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