Customizing the Windows Vista Interface : Controlling Taskbar Grouping, Using Screen Space Efficiently

Controlling Taskbar Grouping

Taskbar grouping means that when the taskbar fills up with buttons, Windows Vista consolidates icons from the same program into a single button, as shown in Figure 1. To access one of these grouped windows, you click the button and then click the window you want.

Figure 1. When the taskbar gets filled with buttons, Windows Vista groups similar windows into a single button, as shown here with Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer.

Tip

You can close all of a group’s windows at once by right-clicking the group button and then clicking Close Group.

The grouping feature makes it easier to read the name of each taskbar button, but the price is a slight efficiency drop because it takes two clicks to activate a window instead of one. If you don’t like this tradeoff, you can disable the grouping feature by right-clicking the taskbar, clicking Properties, and then deactivating the Group Similar Taskbar Buttons check box.

Tip

Another way to prevent grouping is to give the taskbar more room to display buttons. The easiest way to do that is to resize the taskbar by dragging its top edge up until the taskbar expands. If this doesn’t work, the taskbar is probably locked. Unlock it by right-clicking the taskbar and then clicking Lock the Taskbar.

Alternatively, you can tweak the grouping feature to suit the way you work. To do this, open the Registry Editor and head for the following key:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\

Add a DWORD value called TaskbarGroupSize and set it to one of the following values:

0— When the grouping kicks in (that is, when the taskbar gets full), Windows Vista groups the buttons from only the applications that you have used the least.

1— When the grouping kicks in, Windows Vista groups the buttons from only the application that has the most windows open. If a second application surpasses the number of open windows in the first application, the second application’s windows are grouped as well (that is, the first application’s windows remained grouped).

x— Windows Vista will group any application that has at least x windows open, where xis a number between 2 and 99. Note that the grouping occurs even if the taskbar is not full.

Note that you must log off or restart Windows Vista to put the new setting into effect. You can change this setting via Tweak UI: simply display the Taskbar, Grouping item.

Modifying the Start Menu and Taskbar with Group Policies

Tthe group policies offer unprecedented control over the Windows Vista interface without having to modify the Registry directly. This is particularly true of the Start menu and taskbar, which boast more than 60 policies that do everything from removing Start menu links such as Run and Help to hiding the taskbar’s notification area. To see these policies, launch the Group Policy editor and select User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Start Menu and Taskbar.

Most of the policies are straightforward: By enabling them, you remove a feature from the Start menu or taskbar. For example, enabling the Remove Run Menu from Start Menu policy prevents the user from adding the Run command to the Start menu (or hides the Run command if the user has already added it) and disables the Windows Logo+R shortcut key. This is handy if you’re trying to restrict a user to using only those programs and documents that appear on the Start menu.

Here are a few policies that I think are the most useful:

Clear History of Recently Opened Documents on Exit— Enable this policy to remove all documents from the current user’s Recent Items list whenever Windows Vista exits.

Remove Drag-and-Drop Context Menus on the Start Menu— Enable this policy to prevent the current user from rearranging the Start menu using drag-and-drop techniques.

Do Not Keep History of Recently Opened Documents— Enable this policy to prevent Windows Vista from tracking the current user’s recently opened documents.

Prevent Changes to Taskbar and Start Menu Settings— Enable this policy to prevent the current user from accessing the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box.

Remove Access to the Context Menus for the Taskbar— Enable this policy to prevent the current user from seeing the taskbar’s shortcut (also called context) menus by right-clicking the taskbar.

Do Not Display Any Custom Toolbars in the Taskbar— Enable this policy to prevent the current user from adding custom toolbars to the taskbar.

Hide the Notification Area— Enable this policy to prevent the current user from seeing the taskbar’s notification area.

Remove User Name from Start Menu— Enable this policy to prevent the current user’s name from appearing at the top of the Start menu. This is a good idea if you need more room on the Start menu for the pinned or frequent program lists.

Turn Off All Balloon Notifications— Enable this policy to prevent the current user from seeing the balloon tips that Windows Vista displays when it prompts you about new hardware being detected, downloading automatic updates, and so on.

Using Screen Space Efficiently

How images appear on your monitor and how efficiently you use the monitor’s viewable area is a function of two measurements: the color quality and the screen resolution. The color quality is a measure of the number of colors available to display images on the screen. Color quality is usually expressed in either bits or total colors. For example, a 4-bit display can handle up to 16 colors (2 to the power of 4 equals 16). The most common values are 16-bit (65,536 colors), 24-bit (16,777,216 colors), and 32-bit (16,777,216 colors).

The screen resolution is a measure of the density of the pixels used to display the screen image. The pixels are arranged in a row-and-column format, so the resolution is expressed as rows by columns, where rows is the number of pixel rows and columns is the number of pixel columns. For example, an 800 by 600 resolution means screen images are displayed using 800 rows of pixels and 600 columns of pixels.

How does all this effect productivity?

• In general, the greater the number of colors, the sharper your screen image will appear. Sharper images, especially text, are easier to read and put less strain on the eyes.

  Sharpening Text with ClearType

  If you read a lot of onscreen text, particularly if you use a notebook or an LCD screen, activate Windows Vista’s ClearType feature, which drastically reduces the jagged edges of screen fonts and makes text super-sharp and far easier to read than regular screen text. ClearType is activated by default in Windows Vista. To be sure, right-click the desktop and then click Personalize. In the Personalization window, click Window Color and Appearance and then Open Classic Appearance Properties for More Color Options. In the Appearance Settings dialog box, click Effects to open the Effects dialog box. Make sure that the Use the Following Method to Smooth Edges of Screen Fonts check box is activated and then select ClearType from the list below it. Click OK in each open dialog box to put the new setting into effect.

  
  

• At higher resolutions, individual screen items—such as icons and dialog boxes—appear smaller because these items tend to have a fixed height and width, expressed in pixels. For example, a dialog box that’s 400 pixels wide will appear half as wide as the screen at 800 by 600. However, it will appear to be only one quarter of the screen width at 1,600 by 1,200 (a common resolution for very larger monitors).

  This means that at higher resolutions your maximized windows will appear larger, so you’ll get a larger work area.

The key thing to bear in mind about all this is that there’s occasionally a tradeoff between color quality and resolution. That is, depending on how much video memory is installed on your graphics adapter, you might have to trade higher resolution for lower color quality, or vice versa.

Rather than eking out the most from a single monitor, you can attach a second monitor to your system and extend your desktop onto that monitor. This enables you to display your work on one monitor and windows that you want to keep an eye on—such as your email client or your web browser—on the second monitor. To make this happen, you either need to add a second video card to your system (preferably the same type as your existing card) or you need to use a single video card that offers two VGA ports.

To change the screen resolution and color quality, and to activate a second monitor, follow these steps:

1.	Select Start, Control Panel, Appearance and Personalization.
2.	Under Personalization, click the Adjust Screen Resolution link to get the Display Settings dialog box onscreen, as shown in Figure 2 Figure 2. Use the Display Settings dialog box to set the screen resolution and color quality.
3.	To set the resolution, drag the Resolution slider left or right.
4.	To set the color quality, choose an item from the Colors list.
5.	If you have a second monitor attached to your computer, click the monitor icon labeled 2 and then activate the Extend the Desktop onto This Monitor check box. You can then repeat steps 3 and 4 to set the resolution and colors for the second monitor.
6.	Click OK. Windows Vista performs the adjustment and then displays a dialog box asking if you want to keep the new setting.
7.	Click Yes.

Note

If your graphics adapter or monitor can’t handle the new resolution or color quality, you’ll end up with a garbled display. In this case, just wait for 15 seconds and Windows Vista will restore the resolution to its original setting.