Paul Thurrott - Windows 8 Secrets

Well, not quite.

No, you’re not going to be running multiple Metro-style apps on-screen, as you can do with desktop-based applications. There are security, performance, and battery life reasons for that, but no matter. What Microsoft is providing is a simple screen-sharing feature called Snap, which lets you use two Metro-style apps—or one Metro-style app and the desktop—side by side, albeit in limited ways. In this configuration, one app—the so-called snapped app—will occupy a small channel on the left or right side of the screen. And the other app, the so-called main app, will occupy the rest.

Not all apps support snapping fully, because they’re either useless or next to useless in a snapped configuration. But some apps provide specifically tailored snap interfaces—like Calendar and Mail—and can be quite useful in this way.

Since a picture really is worth about a thousand words in this case, examine Figure 3-27 to see what Snap looks like. Note that the app in the main area, on the right in this figure, can be the desktop or any Metro-style app.

Figure 3-27:Snap: Simple screen sharing

While there are a number of ways to snap an app, the most reliable—and consistent across mouse and touch—is to use Switcher. Here’s how you do so using either the mouse or touch.

After ensuring that the app (or desktop) you wish to have in the main view is on-screen, enable Switcher. Then, grab the app you wish to snap from the Switcher list of app thumbnails, and then pull it out of Switcher. As you do, the Snap border bar, shown in Figure 3-28, will appear. When it does, release the mouse button (or lift your finger from the screen) to snap the app.

Note that you can perform these same basic steps to snap the app on the right side of the screen. But instead of releasing the thumbnail when you pull it out of Switcher, drag it all the way over to the right edge of the screen until the Snap border bar appears there. Then release the mouse button (or lift your finger).

Figure 3-28:Snapping an app

There are a few other things you can do with Snap. For example, you can reverse the snapped and main apps so that the previously snapped app now takes up most of the on-screen real estate. To do so, just double-click the Snap border bar. Or, with a touch screen, just drag the bar toward the middle of the screen and then lift your finger.

If you’re a keyboard shortcut junkie, Snap supports some cool shortcuts. For example, from any Metro-style app, you can tap Winkey + . (period) to engage the Snap border bar and then tap that repeatedly to keep moving it to the right. (Winkey + Shift + . moves to the left.) We provide a complete list of Winkey keyboard shortcuts in the appendix.

If this is still too limiting, consider a multi-monitor configuration. In this case, you can have the Start screen and all Metro-style apps on one screen and the desktop and its applications spread across one or more other screens. We discuss this configuration in Chapter 5 Summary While Windows 8 provides most of the same customization and personalization functionality from previous Windows versions, it also includes new capabilities. These extend from the expected Metro-based enhancements to new desktop customization features and, perhaps most interestingly, some features that make the Metro and desktop environments work better together. Now that you understand the basics of using both of these environments, and how to meld them to your needs, it’s time to learn more about the Metro apps that make Windows 8 so special. .

Back in the “Longhorn” days, when Microsoft was prepping the version of Windows that was eventually released in diminished form as Windows Vista, the software giant revealed that it was working on a new centralized notifications system that would be used by the OS as well as any third-party applications that needed this functionality. The idea was a good one since most Windows applications simply do their own thing when it comes to notifications. But because of delays in getting Vista to market, that notifications system—like many other good ideas from the Longhorn project—never made it to into Windows.

Flash forward a decade and Microsoft has finally realized its vision for a central notifications system in Windows. That said, Windows 8 bears little resemblance to Longhorn, and it’s not likely that many from the Longhorn era of Microsoft could have foreseen the rise in touch-based devices that necessitated the full-screen Metro experiences in this release.

No matter. It’s here now. And while only Windows itself and new Metro-style apps can take advantage of this new notifications platform, they work on the desktop as well. So if you get a new e-mail or have an upcoming appointment, you will still get alerted.

Windows 8 supports two types of notifications: full-screen, modal notifications that must be dealt with before continuing, and small, floating notification toasts that appear and then disappear on their own. The former are the province of Windows and system-level features only and are generally very important. Notification toasts, meanwhile, can vary in importance, but since they’re app-based, they’re never going to involve a decision that could render your PC inoperable.

Figure 3-29 shows a full-screen notification. As you can see, it’s a fairly jarring and attention-getting interface, and something you won’t miss.

Figure 3-29:A full-screen notification really gets in your face.

An app-based notification toast, like the one in Figure 3-30, meanwhile, can be subtle, unless of course you are getting repeated toasts appearing back to back as you might with an instant messaging app. These notifications appear in the top-right corner of the screen and disappear if you do nothing.

Notifications are configured via PC Settings: From anywhere in Windows 8, press Winkey + I (or access the Charms bar and then choose Settings) to access the Settings pane. Then, select the link titled More PC Settings. In PC Settings, select Notifications on the left. The screen will resemble Figure 3-31.

Figure 3-30:A notification toast

Figure 3-31:Notifications settings

There are two basic areas to this interface. On the top are three options related to notifications generally. And on the bottom is a toggle for each Metro-style app that can provide notifications.

Each of these should be relatively straightforward. In the case of the apps list, each toggle provides you with an opportunity to determine whether individual apps can provide notifications. So if you feel that Messaging notifications are annoying, just toggle those off.

We discuss PC Settings further in Chapter 5 Summary While Windows 8 provides most of the same customization and personalization functionality from previous Windows versions, it also includes new capabilities. These extend from the expected Metro-based enhancements to new desktop customization features and, perhaps most interestingly, some features that make the Metro and desktop environments work better together. Now that you understand the basics of using both of these environments, and how to meld them to your needs, it’s time to learn more about the Metro apps that make Windows 8 so special. .