Taskbar

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.

[1][2][3][4] 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.

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.

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.

It is called the icon bar[5] and remains an essential part of Arthur's succeeding RISC OS operating system.

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.

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.

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.

[11] 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 button 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 application icons, the ability to pin application to the taskbar so that they're shown even if they aren't running, and hiding the application names by default.

When the taskbar is displayed vertically on versions of Windows prior to Windows Vista, the Start menu button will only display the text "Start" or translated equivalent if the taskbar is wide enough to show the full text.

[28][29] When unlocked, "grips" are displayed next to the movable elements which allow grabbing with the mouse to move and size.

Windows includes the following deskbands but does not display them by default (except the Quick Launch toolbar in certain versions and configurations).

Prior to Windows Vista, the Desktop Toolbars could be dragged off the taskbar and float independently, or docked to a display edge.

Windows Vista greatly limited, but did not eliminate the ability to have desktop toolbar not attached to the taskbar.

Version 8.5 introduced the ability to optionally also display the application name and to "tear off" the menu by dragging the title with the mouse.

The palette window could be configured using AppleScript to appear much like a taskbar, with no title bar and fixed to one edge of the screen.