Windows 10 Users, How About Centered Taskbar Icons?

[The AchieVer]

Windows 10 Users, How About Centered Taskbar Icons? 

 

The Windows 10 taskbar has received only subtle tweaks in the last few feature updates for the operating system, and among them there’s the Fluent Design touch and the support for the new light theme in version 1903.

But overall, the taskbar is largely the same as in the older Windows 10 versions, and what’s more, super-similar to the one we used in Windows 8 and Windows 7.

As it typically happens with everything Windows, the most interesting feature proposals come from the user community which doesn’t only provide feedback and suggestions to the company, but also comes up with concepts and sometimes third-party tools to make things happen.

One of the most recent feature requests I came across and which many users told me would be a great addition to Windows 10 is support for centered taskbar icons, which make the desktop look pretty much like what you can see in the screenshots here.

Many believe that moving taskbar icons right to the middle of the screen would make everything easier to reach, as the focus would always be on these apps.

And at some level, this makes sense, because the taskbar isn’t only an app launcher, but it also lets you manage running programs.

So what some users think of when requesting such a change on the Windows 10 desktop is turning the taskbar into some sort of dock similar to the one on macOS. Truth be told, Apple’s dock has always been not only a key part of the operating system, but also one eye-candy feature, and it’s no surprise that third-party developers ported it to Windows.

In other words, if you really want the macOS dock on Windows, you can have it in a matter of seconds with third-party apps, including Rainmeter, which lets you create some stunning launchers with only a little coding experience.

But while you can bring a dock to the Windows 10 desktop, the question still remains: is it useful in any way? Should Microsoft introduce a toggle to let users move all their taskbar icons to the center of the screen?
 

 

 

Providing users with more choices and letting them customize the operating system the way they want is something that Microsoft should clearly do, but at the end of the day, I don’t think that centering the taskbar icons is something that should become the new default.

Such a change could be counterproductive for many users, especially if the Start menu itself doesn’t change its position. As you can see in the screenshots here, even using a third-party application like CenterTaskbar that centers the taskbar icons leaves the Start menu where it is right now, with a lot of wasted space in-between the other elements on the taskbar.

What could be a much better way of implementing such a change includes, in my opinion, a more dramatic overhaul of the taskbar. For example, with full taskbar transparency and centering both the Start menu and the system tray icons, the experience could become much more modern, but at the same time, too similar to the one on macOS.

The way things are right now on Windows 10 desktop contributes to the familiar side of the operating system, and this is exactly the part that Microsoft shouldn’t break down. The last time the company tried to do something in this regard it removed the Start button altogether, making many people feel lost on the desktop.

Windows is an operating system used by billions of people across the world, many of which are just beginners who want an easy way to do simple things like checking their emails. So if Microsoft ever decides to embrace such a substantial overhaul, it should by no means be pushed as the new default, but rather as an option that users can enable manually.

 

 

Source

[IronY-Man]

Hahah  !! Finally someone got theirs head out of the rearend and requested this......I've been using this Win 7 SP1.... with empty folder bar trick and with 10 didnt need it , cos the cortana/ search only in LTSB already does it for me , the  centered taskbar icons !!