Jump Lists
When you right-click an application icon in the taskbar, Windows 7 will display a list of menus known as Jump Lists. Jump Lists contain several default options as well as a list of tasks and destinations that you can perform within the selected application. For example, Figure 2-5 shows the Jump List of the Control Panel application. It contains a section called Recent that displays a list of recently used applications in the Control Panel.
Figure 2-5. The taskbar showing the list of recent activities performed with the Control Panel application
Figure 2-4. The taskbar uses a rectangular border to denote running applications; flashing icons indicate a call for attention
The Jump List of an application can also be seen in the Start menu. If you click the Start menu, you will notice that there are several items with an arrow next to them. For example, clicking the Control Panel item (see Figure 2-6) will reveal its Jump Lists.
Figure 2-6. Jump Lists can also be seen in the Start menu
Tasks
As mentioned, Jump Lists contain a list of tasks and destinations. The tasks list contains application-specific actions that you can perform with an application. Tasks are context-free actions, independent of whether the application is running. As an example, the Jump List for Internet Explorer (see Figure 2-7) contains a Tasks section in which you can invoke InPrivate Browsing or create a New Tab page.
Destinations
Besides showing the recent tasks that you have performed with an application, the Jump Lists of an application also shows the destinations of an application. For example, in
Figure 2-7. The Frequent destination shows the list of frequently visited sites the Jump List of Internet Explorer (as shown in Figure 2-7), you will see a section called Frequent, which displays the list of frequently visited websites (the destinations of a web browser).
The Difference Between Tasks and Destinations
The easiest way to differentiate tasks from destinations is to think of a task as a verb and a destination as a noun. For instance, some examples of tasks are:
• Play all music (Windows Media Player)
• Resume previous list (Windows Media Player)
• Go to MSN home page (Live Messenger)
• New Note (Sticky Notes) Some examples of destinations are:
• Recently visited websites (Internet Explorer)
Default entries
By default, a Jump List has at least two list items in it. Figure 2-8 shows the Jump List for the Paint application. The first item allows you to launch a new instance of the application. The second allows you to pin (or unpin if it has already been pinned onto the taskbar) the program from the taskbar.
Figure 2-8. The default items in a Jump List
The third item closes the application and will appear only if at least one instance of the program is already running.
To pin an application onto the taskbar, first launch the application, and then right-click the application's icon in the taskbar. Select the "Pin this program to taskbar" list item. By doing so, the application will now always appear in the taskbar.
You can also pin items listed in the Recent destination. For example, Figure 2-9 shows the Recent destination of the Jump List for Word. You can pin an item by clicking the pin icon shown to the right of the item. The pinned item will then appear in the Pinned destination.
- Figure 2-9. Pinning items in the Recent destination
Some applications, such as Internet Explorer 8, let you pin destinations by dragging them to the application's taskbar icon. To pin a web page to IE8's Jump List, drag the web page icon to IE8's taskbar icon. The web page icon appears to the left of its URL in the location field at the top of the IE8 window.
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