Windows 7 – Feature Spotlight 1
As you may know, I’ve been using the Windows 7 (build 7000) for a few days now, and the more I use it, the more I love it. There are a lot of great features and touches included in this first public beta build, some which are nice additions, some which are questionable. Since my readers aren’t typically huge computer nerds like I am, these spotlights will focus on the basic stuff.
This first feature spotlight will focus on “Aero Peek”. Aero Peek is an evolved idea from the “Show Desktop” icon from past windows versions. Previously, if you clicked on the Show Desktop icon in your quicklaunch bar, all windows would be minimized, leaving it for you to reopen the windows in the order you wanted once you were done with your desktop duties. This was fine, but sometimes annoying when you just wanted to take a look at your desktop for the presence of a file, but not have to deal with re-opening a dozen windows.
Enter Aero Peek, which is activated by simply hovering over the new glass tile next to the time display on the taskbar:
You can see it above sitting to the right of the time display. It’s very unassuming, which is nice. Simply hover your mouse over it, and in a split second, you get a quick view of your desktop. For example, here is my desktop with some windows open (IE8, WLW, Wordpad, Calculator, and Windows Update):
However, once you hover your mouse over the glass tile, it will appear as such:
Feel free to click on the pictures above for a bigger version. It shows you the outlines of your open windows as a way to tell you that you’re using Aero Peek. Once you move your mouse cursor off of the glass tile, all your windows immediately reappear as they were. I love this feature because it enables me to dock my calendar and weather applet (as you can see in the upper right of the second picture) on the desktop without making my windows smaller so I can see them at all times. A quick hover lets me see what I need to see in a non-destructive manner.
But don’t fret, if you still want to minimize all your windows in true “show desktop” fashion, simply click the glass tile, and everything will disappear. Simple as that.
The next Windows 7 Feature Spotlight will introduce you guys to the brand new taskbar. It changes up things from what you’re used to. Some people hate it, some people like it.
That’s very neat… as many of you know, I usually have 10-15… or more… windows open at once, and this is a daily annoyance to me. So that’s a great feature :). BTW, clicking the pictures doesn’t give you a bigger version of it, they open in their own windows, but they’re still the same size.
I actually realize a bigger picture doesn’t appear after I published the blog, but I didn’t think anybody would actually point it out. I should’ve guessed you would…
Here’s a Youtube video showing some different uses of Aero Peek where they don’t use it as I’ve described here, but using it in a different manner with the “Alt-Tab” functionality.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WgaWz_uq-E
That is a nifty new feature. It’s a great idea. I don’t normally have a lot of windows open, but for those of you that do I can imagine that that would be very useful.