Why is the taskbar at the top..?

[Dr.Gibbs]

Has anyone ever thought about this? Why is the taskbar at the top, and the program menus at the bottom? If I had designed the Windows GUI, I would have put the taskbar at the bottom with the input menu, and the program menu / close button at the top, just like it is on desktops.

I never even thought about this until I used a program that put the taskbar on the bottom. It seems like it would make the interface feel a little more natural.

[smeg36]

The older Palm PC's had the start menu at the bottom. They were the ones that used the older Windows CE. There must be a reason they decided to move it to the top after it was already at the bottom, but I don't know the answer.

[Osiris]

What boggles me even more, is why Microsoft decided to leave all of us southpaws in the dust. It would have taken like 5 extra lines of code to put in a "Left/Right hand" option to move the scroll bars over to the left. My Palm had no problem doing it.
*sigh*

I kinda like it at the top. who knows why though

[Double-Trinity]

Originally posted by XKalibuR
I kinda like it at the top. who knows why though

It is a lot more logical for a small area, stylus input device and here is why:

• The taskbar and title bar/caption of most programs are merged, rather than taking up two lines.
• Since the menus are at the bottom you can access them and click on the buttons withouth blocking the screen and what ou're trying to look at. With mouse-based input this doesn't matter since it doesn't cover anything, but with the menu on top, ou have to move your hand in the way of the screen.
• Kind of an extension of the last point, usually when peopel want to exit a program, or minimize, or what have you then they wouldn't mind covering it up, so then moving your hand and stylus OVER the screen to the top is not objectionable.
• Now the command bars (combination menu and taskbars) have more room, the width of the whole bototm, rather than "sharing" the sapce with the title and so on. Take a look at CE-2 screenshots to see waht I mean.

[Dr.Gibbs]

Hmm... well, that certainly answers my question. I guess Microsoft did something smart for once :)

Originally posted by Dr.Gibbs
Hmm... well, that certainly answers my question. I guess Microsoft did something smart for once :)

releasing the pocketpc os wasnt? then we would have axims with the palm os :rolling: :sick:

[DennisFranz]

Almost 'MAC'-like isn't it?

[slease]

It seems to me that the old Win CE pda's had expandable menus as well. If I'm remembering right that would be a great feature to have.

top or bottom doesnt make a whole lot of difference to me since I keep my start/task bar on the right side of the screen on my desktop :p


....which, coincidentally, would be very inconvenient when not using a landscape program...