DayleRees Posted February 7, 2005 Share Posted February 7, 2005 When you think about it the only major change to the windows taskbar recently was the startpane with xp, im sure with all the people here like moby, menge, objectdock team and y'z someone could come up with a more usable taskbar. A taskbar with dock style animations in my opinion would be awsome, like new tasks sliding out and fading in dock styleee... and how about a new style task pane, or something completely different sliding up. This idea just popped up when i was playing with photoshop, messing with one of Calming's screenshots on Ave's forums. ( sorry for steal - just used it to get idea across ) I came up with something like this as an alternative to the window grouping system ( which i dont think is ideal ). Description Of Image Below : When many programs are open you see these mini tab buttons on the mainbar, like u see in my pic, if u needed to know what each are u run mouse over them, they expand dock styleeee and show u their name, others can move to fit, and of course labels would be shown anyway if not that many programs were open on the taskbar. Then the user clicks the firefox tab, and out pops ( slides.. fades.. spins... explodes ) another menu, that also moves dock style aka acording to mouse position it slides, allowing u to choose between the windows. I only really attacked the grouping methods of the original taskbar in this pic, but im sure with all the neowin customization crew hundreds of ideas could be thought of to improve on the original taskbar. Maybe if enough people think its a good idea, some legendary D3D coder cough*menge*cough*moby*etc*cough could have a stab at it? Thanks for reading my stupidly long post :) DayleRees? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dreamz Veteran Posted February 7, 2005 Veteran Share Posted February 7, 2005 it sounds cool, but there isn't going to be much improvement in functionality for someone like me. it's more like eye candy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Menge Posted February 7, 2005 Share Posted February 7, 2005 i particularly like the idea of revamping the current windows taskbar (or overriding it in some way)... how about people post here their ideas of how to improve the usability of the taskbar and we'll see if someone takes a stab at it :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex1986 Posted February 7, 2005 Share Posted February 7, 2005 I Like this idea , but if you make it transparent , only the background of taskbar not the icons etc. like Slate DVM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dreamz Veteran Posted February 7, 2005 Veteran Share Posted February 7, 2005 i particularly like the idea of revamping the current windows taskbar (or overriding it in some way)...how about people post here their ideas of how to improve the usability of the taskbar and we'll see if someone takes a stab at it :) 585429898[/snapback] i've always wanted floating tasks, free-floating taskbar buttons i can arrange on my desktop like my icons, that i can show/hide or arrange in a menu, etc. I Like this idea , but if you make it transparent , only the background of taskbar not the icons etc. like Slate DVM 585430122[/snapback] completely transparent taskbars are already possible with a little app called taskbar transparent, a little tool to manipulate the msstyles file. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DayleRees Posted February 7, 2005 Author Share Posted February 7, 2005 (edited) Yeh as for the transparent thing, that was just the taskbar i was using as a base, of course this would be our taskbar and so would do anything, look like anything, and feel like anything we want. Attatched is a copy of a replacement tray idea i just knocked up, sorry for messy phtooshopism but the theme isnt really the point of it its just to show the idea. The tray itself could slide fade spin twist jump bounce etc out when the button is pressed, OR for dreamz with his free floating fetish could just appear in the place it was last closed, completely free floating. Piccyness : (edited post and added in animated gif of the menu sliding open ( cos im weird ) ) Edited February 7, 2005 by DayleRees Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DayleRees Posted February 7, 2005 Author Share Posted February 7, 2005 Attatchement : A demo of what i meant by sliding buttons on the taskbar, made quickly and cheesily in VB, so you may need VB runtime files. Flickers a bit and isnt exactly what i meant but its a littly idea, move mouse over the 2 items to see what happens. Hope it explains a little :s demo.zip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fedex Posted February 7, 2005 Share Posted February 7, 2005 That's a cool idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DDM Posted February 8, 2005 Share Posted February 8, 2005 This could be a cool idea, if done correctly it could be possible to come up with a takbar that people would prefer to the current boring windows taskbar (which i know Dayle hates :yes: ). Getting the grouping correct would probably be difficult though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DayleRees Posted February 8, 2005 Author Share Posted February 8, 2005 grouping wouldnt be too hard, once u have a task list, its the sliding animations etc that take some time because of their alogarythms. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jase Posted February 8, 2005 Share Posted February 8, 2005 Your second concept seems to be allready done, using Tclock2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DDM Posted February 8, 2005 Share Posted February 8, 2005 i like the demo though, kinda gets the point across. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imtoomuch Posted February 8, 2005 Share Posted February 8, 2005 Yeh as for the transparent thing, that was just the taskbar i was using as a base, of course this would be our taskbar and so would do anything, look like anything, and feel like anything we want.Attatched is a copy of a replacement tray idea i just knocked up, sorry for messy phtooshopism but the theme isnt really the point of it its just to show the idea. The tray itself could slide fade spin twist jump bounce etc out when the button is pressed, OR for dreamz with his free floating fetish could just appear in the place it was last closed, completely free floating. Piccyness : (edited post and added in animated gif of the menu sliding open ( cos im weird ) ) 585430312[/snapback] That's a cool concept. It looks awesome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mojomonkee Posted February 8, 2005 Share Posted February 8, 2005 this is all conceivably do-able in litestep, btw. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DayleRees Posted February 8, 2005 Author Share Posted February 8, 2005 yeh, but we'd have overall more control over this, id rather have a small skinable app doing all this that one of those big packages if u get what i mean, also the idea im getting here is a D3D accelerated taskbar, which would be cool, and fast, ie.. better than litestep ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mojomonkee Posted February 8, 2005 Share Posted February 8, 2005 meh, anything done in litestep can be easily manipulated through editing a text file. this could be done "cool and fast" in litestep. although i'm not sure what you mean by "cool". i fail to see how having it be a separate app would give you more control. you'd be at the mercy of the app author. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DayleRees Posted February 8, 2005 Author Share Posted February 8, 2005 well by cool of course i mean eye candy, this is after all the customization thread, to explain what i mean think of the docks we have available to use at the moment, mobys for instance is D3D accelerated, and moves swiftly and smoothly, with various type of animation. I'd love to see something like this come into play on a taskbar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kylejn Posted February 8, 2005 Share Posted February 8, 2005 I think this is a GREAT idea, and would LOVE to see someone with some mad coding skills take this on. I know I'd use it. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex1986 Posted February 8, 2005 Share Posted February 8, 2005 meh, anything done in litestep can be easily manipulated through editing a text file. this could be done "cool and fast" in litestep. although i'm not sure what you mean by "cool".i fail to see how having it be a separate app would give you more control. you'd be at the mercy of the app author. 585433170[/snapback] Not everyone like "Litestep" :blink: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DayleRees Posted February 8, 2005 Author Share Posted February 8, 2005 how about you guys try to come up with some ideas? ill list them all on the first post and once enough are there ill try to make a mockup picture :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metal_termite Posted February 8, 2005 Share Posted February 8, 2005 completely transparent taskbars are already possible with a little app called taskbar transparent, a little tool to manipulate the msstyles file. :) 585430141[/snapback] The app you speak of makes the taskbar transparent while keeping the icons opaque? I searched google for 'taskbar transparent' but it was too vague. can you provide a link please? :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dreamz Veteran Posted February 8, 2005 Veteran Share Posted February 8, 2005 The app you speak of makes the taskbar transparent while keeping the icons opaque? I searched google for 'taskbar transparent' but it was too vague. can you provide a link please? :) 585434638[/snapback] https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?show...bar+transparent Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coffeee Posted February 8, 2005 Share Posted February 8, 2005 DayleRees... where have i seen that before? Did you used to do MSN skins by any chance? Btw excellent ideas, i love the tray idea, that would really save space and look cool :D Coffeee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DayleRees Posted February 8, 2005 Author Share Posted February 8, 2005 Yep i did coffee, my claim to fame : MSN Skins, couple of visual styles, and an MSN Messenger Client coded in VB :p Thanks for remembering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
threetonesun Posted February 8, 2005 Share Posted February 8, 2005 I always thought minimize to icon would be cool, since I usually use my desktop as a work surface (drag and drop open documents to it). I guess the mac bar is like that, sort of, but I'd like to be able to put the icons anywhere. Oh, and the litestep right-click menus are the way to go. Taskbars + start panels suck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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