Chapter 2: Navigating the Windows 8.1 Interface

IN THIS CHAPTER

Introducing the Windows 8.1 interface

Using the Start screen

Using the Charms Bar

Using the taskbar

Working with Windows 8 apps

Getting to the desktop

If you've been using previous versions of Windows for a while, you're no doubt familiar with the Windows desktop and how to work with Windows and Windows applications. Even so, you might find the Windows 8.1 interface very different. Gestures such as swipe, tap, tap and hold, slide, and so on might be foreign concepts. Fortunately, Windows 8.1 uses many of the same general gestures and actions you'll find on other touch-based devices. So, the Windows 8.1 interface should feel familiar to you.

If you don't have much experience with touch interfaces, this chapter will get you up to speed. You'll learn to navigate through the Windows 8.1 interface, use Windows 8 apps, and even get to that familiar Windows desktop! Armed with some basic concepts, you'll be navigating the Windows 8.1 interface like a pro in no time.

If you've been using Windows 8 for a while and are new to Windows 8.1, this chapter will also help you understand the changes that Microsoft introduced in Windows 8.1 to address some user angst over the Start menu (or lack thereof) and make the interface even easier to use.

Introducing the Windows 8 Interface

The new interface introduced in Windows 8 and fine-tuned in Windows 8.1 represents a shift toward touch-based interaction with the operating system and applications, driven in large part by the growth of the tablet and handheld device markets. But the Windows 8.1 interface is not just about touch; it's also about simplification and putting data and applications within easy reach. As you grow comfortable using the Windows 8.1 interface, you'll no doubt come to appreciate both the simplicity of using it and its clean look.

Figure 2.1 shows the Windows 8.1 Lock screen, which you use to log into the device. Although Chapter 4 explains how to log in and out of Windows, we cover it briefly here. To log in, slide the display up. To slide on a touch device, move your finger from the bottom of the display toward the top. With a mouse, click anywhere on the Lock screen. Windows will display the list of user accounts available on the device (see Figure 2.2). Tap (touch or click) on a user tile to enter the password for that user account, and then press Enter or tap (or click) the arrow icon to the right of the password field.

After you log in, you'll see the Windows 8.1 Start screen, shown in Figure 2.3. The Start screen serves much the same function as the Start menu in previous versions of Windows. Square or rectangular tiles give you quick access to apps, external resources such as SkyDrive, folders, and even the desktop.

The key goal for the design of the Windows 8.1 interface is simplicity. From the Start screen with its simple tile metaphor, to Windows 8.1 apps with no borders or traditional window elements such as menu bars and close buttons, the Windows 8.1 interface takes a minimalist approach to how you interact with Windows, your apps, and your data.

Before we dig deeper into the Windows 8.1 interface and its elements, let's take a look at the gestures and actions you'll use within the interface.

Gestures and Mouse Actions

There are a handful of touch-based gestures you'll use with Windows 8.1, along with mouse-based alternatives for use on non-touch devices (or when you have a mouse connected to a touch device). The following list summarizes Windows 8.1 gestures, along with corresponding mouse actions.

• Tap/Left-click: Touch a finger to the object you want to select, and then remove your finger from the screen. With a mouse, left-click the object (point to it, click the left button, and then release the button).
• Tap and hold/Click and hold: Put a finger on the object you want to select, and hold your finger there. Tap and hold is typically followed by another gesture, such as sliding. For example, to relocate a tile on the Start screen, you tap and hold the tile, and after a check mark appears at the top right of the tile, you can slide it to a new location. The equivalent mouse action for tap and hold is left-click and hold.
• Swipe: Slide your finger across the display, left, right, up, or down. For example, to view the tiles at the right side of the Start screen if they're off-screen, swipe from right to left.
• Slide (drag)/Click and drag: After you've selected an object, you can slide it on the display. Tap and hold to select the object, and then simply slide your finger across the screen to move the object. The mouse equivalent is to click and drag the object.
• Swipe from the edge of the screen inward: There are a handful of tasks you can accomplish by swiping from the edge of the display in toward the middle of the screen. For example, swiping from the left edge lets you switch between apps. Swipe from the right edge to display the Charms Bar. Slide up from the bottom or down from the top to view options for the current app. The mouse equivalent varies depending on the task. To view options for the app, right-click the app. To open the Charms Bar, hold the mouse at the bottom right or top right of the screen.
• Pinch: Place two fingers on the screen and move them apart or toward each other to zoom in or out, respectively.

Using the Start Screen

Now that you know some basic gestures and their corresponding mouse actions, you're ready to start navigating around the Windows 8.1 interface, starting with the Start screen, previously shown in Figure 2.3. Use any of these actions to open the Start screen:

• Press the Windows key on the keyboard.
• Use the mouse to place the cursor at the bottom-left corner of the screen, and then click the resulting Start screen icon.
• Open the charms and tap the Start charm.
• Press Windows+Tab to open the Task Switcher and select the Start icon.

To move around the Start screen on a touch device, simply swipe the display left or right to view additional tiles. Then, tap a tile to open its associated app. Or, in the case of the Desktop tile, tap the tile to open the Windows 8.1 desktop.

You'll find that tiles on the Start screen can be live, meaning they can dynamically display information. For example, after you add an account to the Mail app, it will show a preview of messages in your Inbox. The Weather tile is also live; it shows the current weather conditions (assuming your device is connected to the Internet). Other tiles show similar dynamic data. Figure 2.4 shows some examples of live tiles.

If you're working in an app or on the desktop and you want to return to the Start screen, the easiest method is to push the device's Windows button. On a device without a Windows button (such as a PC with a traditional keyboard), press the Windows key on the keyboard. You can also click or tap the Start icon at the bottom left of the display (see Figure 2.5).

Using the Charms

Charms, shown in Figure 2.6, give you access to Devices, Settings, Search, sharing options, and the Start screen. To display the charms, swipe in from the right edge of the screen. Or, place the mouse at the bottom right or top right of the screen. When the charms appear, click the charm you want to use. To close the charms, simply tap or click any other area of the screen.

Clicking Settings opens a menu similar to the one shown in Figure 2.7. The top portion of the menu is in the context of the current app. For example, if you tap or click Devices with the Start screen displayed, you'll see menu items that pertain to the Start screen. If you have Internet Explorer open, you'll see settings for Internet Explorer. The menu behaves similarly for other apps, showing settings for that app.

The bottom portion of the menu provides system-wide options, including the current network connection status, sound and brightness indicators, a Notifications icon that lets you turn on or off notifications, a Power icon for turning off or suspending the device, and a language icon for selecting the current language. You can click Change PC Settings to open the new Windows 8 PC Settings app, shown in Figure 2.8.

The charms include the following:

• Search: Tap or click Search to open the Search screen, where you can search for apps, documents, and other items.

  See Chapters 22 and 23 for more details on using Search in Windows 8.1.

• Share: Tap or click Share to open the Share menu, which you can use to share content from the current app (if it supports sharing) to other apps. For example, if you open a website in Internet Explorer (IE) and then open the charms and tap Share, the resulting menu enables you to e-mail a link and synopsis of the currently displayed page. A new mail page appears with the content already in the message, and all you have to do is enter an e-mail address and tap Send. You don't have to leave IE to share the content; it remains open while you create and send the e-mail.
• Start: Tap or click Start to open the Start screen.
• Devices: Tap or click Devices to open the Devices menu, where you can view and set options for devices such as secondary displays, printers, and other devices.
• Settings: Described earlier in this section, tapping or clicking Settings opens a Settings menu that lets you specify settings for the current app (or for Windows 8.1 in general, if the Start screen is open when you tap Settings).

Working with Windows 8.1 Apps

If you're working on a traditional PC with Windows 8.1 installed, some (potentially many) of your apps will be “traditional” Windows apps running on the desktop. But, as more and more Windows 8.1 apps are published, you'll no doubt have several favorite Windows 8.1 apps. On touch devices such as tablets and smaller handhelds, many of your apps will probably be Windows 8.1 apps.

In general, working with a Windows 8.1 app should be fairly intuitive. The gestures and actions you use to work with the Start screen and other Windows 8.1 screens are the same for apps. For example, to move back and forth between visited pages in IE, swipe left or right in the IE app.

Rather than focus on specific Windows 8.1 apps, this section of the chapter focuses on actions and methods you'll use in general to work with Windows 8.1 apps.

Opening and using a Windows 8.1 app

Opening a Windows 8.1 app couldn't really be any easier. Just open the Start screen, locate the app's tile, and tap or click the tile. If you're working on a non-touch device, and you have a mouse with a scroll wheel, you can use the wheel to scroll through the Start screen's tiles. Scroll down to move to the right, or scroll up to move to the left. Then, just click the tile for the app you want to open.

How you work in a Windows 8.1 app depends entirely on the app, but will rely on the standard touch gestures and mouse actions described earlier in this chapter. To open a Windows 8.1 app's app menu (see Figure 2.9), swipe up from the bottom or down from the top of the screen. Or, right-click in the app. The app menu offers options for the current app.

Snapping apps on the screen

At first, it might seem that you can view and work with only one Windows 8 app at a time, but you can actually snap two apps to the screen at once and easily switch between them. You can even view the desktop and any running apps there side-by-side with a Windows 8.1 app.

To snap two Windows 8.1 apps to the screen, follow these steps:

1. Open the two Windows 8.1 apps.
2. Switch to the app you want to be “primary,” and consume most of the screen space.
3. Open the app thumbnails and drag the app to the left or right side of the screen. Either action snaps the second app to the left or right of the screen.

Figure 2.10 shows two Windows 8.1 apps snapped side-by-side.

As we hinted at above, you can snap a Windows 8.1 app beside the desktop, enabling you to see and work with a traditional Windows app on the desktop while also using a Windows 8.1 app. For example, Figure 2.11 shows the Windows 8.1 Finance app snapped beside the desktop.

To snap the desktop and a Windows 8.1 app, open the Windows 8.1 app and the desktop from the Start screen. If you want to work with a desktop app, open it from the desktop. With either app in the foreground, open the app thumbnails and drag the other app to the left or right side of the screen. If you look closely at Figure 2.11, you'll see a drag handle between the two apps. Drag this handle to resize the apps, shrinking the primary app and expanding the secondary app. Drag the handle in the other direction to change the primary and secondary again.

If the desktop is primary, dragging the handle to resize the Windows 8.1 app causes the desktop to appear at the edge of the screen as a set of thumbnails showing the running desktop apps. You can switch to a desktop app simply by tapping or clicking its thumbnail. It then becomes primary and the Windows 8.1 app shrinks to become secondary. To show only one app on the screen, drag the handle to move the unwanted app off the screen.

Switching between apps

Experienced Windows users will be happy to learn that the methods you've used in the past to switch between apps are still available in Windows 8.1. For example, you can press Alt+Tab to view a list of running apps (see Figure 2.12) and select one to bring to the foreground. You can also press Windows+Tab to open a task switcher at the left of the screen showing thumbnails of your running apps (see Figure 2.13). Continue pressing Windows+Tab until the desired app is highlighted; then release the keys to switch to that app.

Thanks to the touch-based nature of Windows 8.1, you also have some new ways to switch applications on touch devices:

• Swipe in from the left edge of the screen and release to cycle between running apps. The desktop and all apps running on the desktop are treated as a single app for the purpose of switching in this way.
• Swipe in from the left edge, hold, and then move your finger back to the left until the app thumbnails appear. Then, tap the app you want to use.
• Move the mouse cursor to the top left of the screen, and then move the mouse down to display the app thumbnails. Or, simply click in the upper-left corner of the screen to switch to the next app.
• Move the mouse cursor to the bottom left of the screen, and when the Start screen icon appears, move the mouse up to display the app thumbnails.

Closing a Windows 8.1 app

It's easy to close a Windows 8.1 app, although you might not have figured it out on your own. Just grab the app at the top and drag it down to the bottom of the display.

This method isn't all that intuitive, but it's the easiest way to close a Windows 8.1 app, once you know the method exists. When using a mouse, just move the cursor to the top of the app until the pointer changes to a hand; then click and drag the app to the bottom of the screen. When using a touch device, swipe down from the top to the bottom of the screen. The app should close.

Getting to the Desktop

If you're like most people, you haven't left behind your legacy desktop-based Windows apps in favor of all Windows 8.1 apps. That will, no doubt, change over time as more Windows 8.1 apps become available and as desktop versions are updated to support the Windows 8 interface. Fortunately, Windows 8.1 still supports those desktop apps and makes it easy to get to them from the Start screen. To open the desktop, just tap or click the Desktop tile on the Start screen.

If you're working in a Windows 8.1 app and you want to switch to the desktop, you can access it from the app thumbnails. Just open the thumbnails and tap or click the desktop thumbnail. Or, you can press Alt+Tab or Windows+Tab to open the desktop.

Using the Taskbar

Although not technically a part of the Start screen or the new Windows 8.1 interface, the Windows taskbar nevertheless deserves mention here, if for no other reason than you probably want to pin apps to the taskbar so you can get to them quickly from the desktop.

Figure 2.14 shows the taskbar at the bottom of the desktop with a small selection of apps pinned to it. As in previous versions of Windows, you can open or switch to an app by tapping or clicking its icon on the taskbar.

Although you can't pin Windows 8.1 apps to the taskbar, you can pin your other Windows apps there, as well as app resources such as File Explorer. To pin an app to the taskbar, open the Start screen or search for the app in the Search screen, right-click or tap and hold the app's tile, and in the app menu, tap or click Pin to Taskbar.

Wrap-Up

Although there are some significant improvements and new features in Windows 8.1 geared toward the enterprise and traditional desktop user, some of Windows 8.1's biggest impact will be in the tablet and handheld market. Windows 8.1 and its interface are clearly designed to tackle that market. The clean Windows 8.1 look is well suited to tablets and smaller devices, uncluttering the display.

Some of the gestures and actions you use to work in the Windows 8.1 interface aren't exactly intuitive, but most of them are, and you should have little trouble getting the hang of the new interface. If you're new to Windows, turn to Chapter 3 to learn how to navigate through the desktop and work with desktop apps.