Windows7How

How JumpList in Windows 7 make things quicker

November 6, 2009

Windows 7, the new operating system (OS) from Microsoft, has a number of new features. Here, we will look at the Jump List feature which is new to the Windows 7 OS. This feature is very useful for performing common tasks with a specific application quickly and easily. All that needs to be done is to right-click on the application on the Task Bar or hover your mouse pointer over the application on the Start menu; you will then be shown a list of common tasks or commonly accessed documents with which you use the application.

To be fair, this is not too far away from the My Recent Documents feature in Windows XP – one with which we are all familiar. This is can be traced all the way back to Windows 95’s Start menu – one reason we know it so well – and the Jump List is just an enhancement of that feature. However, the enhancement is where the Jump List leaves the old document list in the dust, even making it seem obsolete. So, let’s see what makes the Jump List better than the previous Windows OS feature set.

Jump Lists resemble what may be thought of as My Recent Documents for each and every application installed on the Windows 7 OS. Each running application on the Task Bar will have a Jump List – accessed by right-clicking – and the icons in the Start menu will also have a Jump List appear to the right of them as well. Some applications can be pinned to the Task Bar; applications like Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player are, by default, pinned there. To access the Jump Lists for these apps, merely right-click on the icon in the Task Bar.

Beyond the similar functionality with the My Recent Documents – which allows a document or destination and the application which uses the file type to be launched when you simply click on the item in the list, often called a ‘shortcut’ – the Jump List also allows you to toggle which applications are pinned to the Task Bar, the ability to close any and all open windows, and access common tasks associated with the application. The document or destination shortcuts will change as you use the application just like the My Recent Documents feature would do for you.

As an example, let’s look at what a Jump List for Internet Explorer might contain since this is one of the most common applications used by Windows users. The IE Jump List would contain a ‘History’ section with a list of recently (or commonly) accessed websites – the destination shortcut. Below that would be a list of common tasks such as launching IE without a destination and closing IE if it is currently running. Also present is the ability to remove IE from the Task Bar by Unpinning it. Furthermore, you can pin a destination (website, in this case) to the Jump List if you know you will visit it regularly; once you have pinned a destination, it will show up in a ‘Pinned’ list on top of the ‘History’ section of the Jump List.

The Windows 7 Jump List is a very useful feature in the new OS from Microsoft. I am sure that you will find it very useful if you are a power user and rely on it to allow you to find documents, destinations and tasks which you use most often.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Tags: application, browser, history, ie jumplist, internet explorer, jump lisrt, pin, pinned, power user, quicker, recent documents, remove, shortcut, start menu, taskbar, windows 7, windows 95, xp