learn more about personalizing your desktop in Chapter 10.
Using Jump Lists
Jump lists were a new feature of Windows 7 that enhance the usefulness of the icons and pin items on the taskbar. Windows 10 continues to use Jump Lists. Jump Lists add the most recently used objects from the application to a pop-up menu. Right-click the icon to view the Jump List (see Figure 3.7).
Figure 3.7 A Jump list for File Explorer.
You don't need to do anything to set up Jump Lists – they happen automatically. Whenever you want to use a Jump List, right-click a taskbar icon and choose the item you want to open.
Running Programs and Apps
You can start any program or app that's installed on your computer by finding the program's icon on the Start menu or by searching for it using Cortana, and then clicking that icon. There are other ways to start programs as well. For example, if an icon for the program is pinned to the taskbar, you can click that icon. If a shortcut icon to the program exists on the desktop, you can click (or double-click) that icon to start the program.
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“Pinning” an app to the taskbar adds a shortcut icon for that object on the taskbar. You can open the associated app or object using that shortcut icon. You can also pin items to the Start menu and use those shortcuts in the same way as shortcuts on the taskbar.
Cortana and search are covered in detail in Chapter 22.
Whether you need to single-click or double-click a desktop icon to open it depends on how you've configured Windows 10. See Chapter 20 for details.
Every time you start a program or app, that program opens in a program window. No rule exists that says you can have only one program open at a time. Some programs even enable you to open multiple copies of the same program. (Modern Windows apps, however, limit you to running only one copy of that app at a time.) You can have as many programs open simultaneously as you can cram into your available memory (RAM). Most programs allow you to run multiple copies. The more memory your system has, the more stuff you can have open without much slowdown in performance. Windows can also create a special page file on disk to mimic RAM, enabling you to actually use more memory than is physically present in the device.
NOTE
When it comes to using programs, or apps, the terms start, run, launch, and open all mean the same thing – to load a copy of the program into memory (RAM) so that it's visible on your screen. You can't use a program or app until it's running.
Most programs you open show their own names somewhere near the top of the program window. You see its name in the title bar at the top of the window, appearing either by itself or as part of a string of items. Figure 3.8 shows the Map app open on the desktop.
Figure 3.8 Sample title bar and taskbar button.
Most items that you open also appear on the taskbar. By default, Windows 10 shows only an icon on the taskbar for open items, with no label. However, you can configure the taskbar to show labels. The name in the taskbar button matches the name of the item.
When you have multiple program windows open, they stack up on the desktop the way multiple sheets of paper on your real desktop stack up. When you have multiple sheets of paper in a pile, you can't see what's on every page. You can see only what's on the top page because the other pages are covered by that page.
Program windows work the same way. When you have multiple program windows open, you can see only the one that's on the top of the stack. The program that's on the top of the stack is the active window.
NOTE
Some programs have an option called “Always on Top” that makes them display on top of the stack even when they aren't active. So, a program could be active but not necessarily on top of the stack. For the purposes of this chapter, however, assume that the active window is always the one on top of the stack.
When two or more program windows are open on the desktop, only one of them can be the active window. The active window has some unique characteristics:
● The active window is usually on the top of the stack. Any other open windows will be under the active window so that they don't cover any of its content. The exception is a window configured for Always on Top, as described in the preceding Note.
● The taskbar button for the active window is highlighted with a brighter foreground color.
● The title bar for the active window is a different color from the inactive ones.
● Anything you do at the keyboard applies to the active window only. You can't type in an inactive window.
When you have two or more programs open at the same time, you want to be able to switch among them easily. You have several ways to switch among open programs, as discussed in the sections that follow.
NOTE
The taskbar shows a miniature version of the window by default. Pointing to a taskbar button reveals a tooltip with the name of the window or program. You can set the size of the icons used by the taskbar through the properties for the taskbar. See Chapter 10 to learn how to set taskbar properties.
As mentioned, almost every open program has a button on the taskbar. When you have multiple open programs, you have multiple taskbar buttons. To make a particular program active, click its taskbar button. If you're not sure which button is which, point at each button. You see the name and a miniature copy of the program that the button represents, as in Figure 3.9. You also see a full-size preview of the window.
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If any part of the window you want to bring to the top of the stack is visible on the screen, you can click that visible part of the window to bring the window to the top of the stack.
Figure 3.9 Pointing to a taskbar button.
If you prefer the keyboard to the mouse, you can use Alt+Tab to switch among open windows. Hold down the Alt key and then press the Tab key. You see a thumbnail image for each open program window, as in the example shown in Figure 3.10. Keep the Alt
