Home windows 11 Begin menu and taskbar to quickly achieve a number of new customization options
One thing to look ahead to: Many long-time Home windows 10 customers didn’t obtain the Begin menu overhaul in Home windows 11 too nicely, partly as a result of it misplaced a lot of its staple features, together with taskbar performance. For individuals who gave these modifications a tough thumbs-down, there’s excellent news: a number of cool updates are on the horizon.
Home windows 11 construct 22635.3785 landed on the beta channel lately. One good function is the power to tug pinned apps from the Begin menu to the taskbar to pin them there as a substitute. Earlier builds solely allowed pinning apps from the “All Apps” listing, not the pinned part of the Begin menu itself, which was an odd omission.
The brand new drag-and-drop performance addresses this, although the animations nonetheless look unpolished. Hopefully, that will get smoothed out earlier than its public launch. Sadly, the choice to pin folders on to the taskbar remains to be lacking. It is an admittedly area of interest energy person function, however having fast folder entry from the taskbar is handy for many who need it.
Undocumented enchancment in Beta 22635.3785: now you can drag apps from the Begin menu’s pinned listing to the taskbar to shortly pin them to it (beforehand, you had to do that from the all apps listing). pic.twitter.com/GO5UgU9DUx
– PhantomOcean3 ð³ (@PhantomOfEarth) June 14, 2024
The devs tweaked the Begin menu’s “All Apps” view. A number of builds in the past, Microsoft tried a extra trendy structure for it, resembling an app drawer-like look, just like Android. It additionally did away with alphabets for a cleaner look. Within the newer construct, the standard alphabetical listing made a return – however organized horizontally quite than in a vertical column like earlier than.
It additionally reintroduced one other Home windows 10 fan favourite. The “All Apps” listing now helps folders. They even increase with a slick animation harking back to tile folders from the earlier Home windows model.
Extra Begin > All apps grid view progress in .3785: folders now work correctly! pic.twitter.com/sAfjhsCoFP
– PhantomOcean3 ð³ (@PhantomOfEarth) June 14, 2024
There are indicators that Microsoft needs to offer customers extra management over the taskbar’s crowded look. Whereas not but totally useful, new choices underneath taskbar settings trace at upcoming toggles to cover the notification bell icon and trim down the system tray clock to indicate solely the time quite than the time and date.
Home windows 11’s more and more cluttered taskbar has been no stranger to criticism, with the search field, Widgets button, Groups chat, and new Copilot icon all jockeying for that restricted house. It is nice that Microsoft is giving customers the choice to reconfigure issues.
Microsoft did not listing any of those options on the official changelog, so kudos to @PhantomOfEarth for sniffing them out. One attention-grabbing change it did point out was ‘leap lists’ for apps on pinned Begin apps.
“When right-clicking on apps pinned to the Begin menu, leap lists will probably be proven for apps which have them reminiscent of File Explorer,” notes Microsoft in a weblog submit.
Though it is not taskbar or Begin menu associated, one final change provides the power to simply share content material to an Android telephone straight from the Home windows 11 share window through the Hyperlink to Home windows app. For these continually shifting recordsdata and media between units, it is a helpful shortcut.
