Home windows 11 is about to get a second taskbar (effectively, type of)

Microsoft is towing with the concept of bringing a secondary menu bar-style expertise to the Home windows 11 platform, particularly as a part of the Command Pallette software program that is bundled inside its first-party PowerToys suite.

Referred to as Command Palette Dock, this new consumer interface would permit for user-customizable shortcuts to be positioned in a devoted on-screen strip, with choices for pinning Command Palette extensions, system useful resource monitor tickers, multimedia playback controls, clipboard history, and different helpful quick-access instruments. After all, the strip itself can be toggleable, that means that it would not be compelled upon the consumer.

“The dock is designed to be extremely configurable. It may be positioned on the highest, left, proper, or backside fringe of the display screen, and extensions might be pinned to a few distinct areas of the dock: begin, middle, and finish. Customers can even customise the visible look, together with background, styling, and theme conduct, just like the primary Command Palette shell. An edit mode permits extensions to be dragged, reordered, and moved freely between dock areas,” says Niels Laute, Senior Product Supervisor at Microsoft.

In the meanwhile, this Command Palette Dock initiative is in a extremely experimental section of growth. The proposal itself might be seen on Microsoft’s PowerToys repository over on GitHub, which showcases a few pattern screenshots and movies, in addition to some written descriptions. Builders are capable of take a look at out the characteristic through compiling code from a devoted department inside GitHub. The corporate is actively on the lookout for suggestions on the proposal, nevertheless it hasn’t dedicated to formally bringing the characteristic to gentle as but.

Command Pallette Dock remains to be conceptual

The characteristic could or could not find yourself delivery as a part of the PowerToys suite

The thought of a devoted UI floor for tickers, instruments, extensions, and different quick-access features is a compelling one, and I personally hope to see Command Pallette Dock get off the bottom. So long as it is an non-obligatory addition to the Windows 11 expertise, I can see many energy customers appreciating the characteristic and its flexibility. Conceptually, I am an enormous fan.

Of explicit observe is the flexibility to place the utility’s interface strip to any aspect of the Home windows desktop, making it act as a form of secondary taskbar of kinds. Home windows 11 notoriously lacks the flexibility to relocate its principal taskbar, which has been a significant sore level for a lot of Home windows 10 holdouts. Taskbar repositioning is an working system mainstay within the desktop computing world, with macOS and most Linux distributions embracing the characteristic, and older variations of Home windows providing it natively, too.

Taking Microsoft’s recent commitment to bettering “the general expertise of Home windows,” into consideration, I’ve excessive hopes that Command Pallette Dock’s configurability is an omen of what is to return within the PC house extra broadly. The flexibility to dock the out-of-box taskbar to the aspect or prime of the display screen, in addition to a easy dropdown menu for resizing it on the fly, would go a great distance in making Home windows 11 extra palatable for these nonetheless on the fence about upgrading to the OS.

Plus, I simply suppose it would be cool to have two separate, repositionable taskbar interfaces pinned to completely different sides of my PC monitor at any given time — one for managing working apps, and one other for glancing at CPU efficiency, controlling music playback, and extra.