… we used to tell potential users that the image was an ‘air vent’ to keep the window cool. It usually got a chuckle, and made the mark much more memorable.”
That’s why, 30 years later, Windows 10 uses the hamburger icon that, when clicked, opens a contextual menu with options that differ based on your context and the app you use.
Whether you like having your news boiled down into a sentence fragment, that’s for you to decide.
Unlike the left side of the Start menu, the right side with the tiles can get gloriously screwed up. You can stretch and move and group and ungroup until you’re blue screened in the face.
Windows 10 Start menu tiles don’t have the security problems. And the infrastructure that has replaced the Gadget mentality has taken Windows 10 to an entirely new level.
Switching to tablet mode and back
Get your computer going. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
You’re looking at the old-fashioned Windows desktop, right? (If you have a mouse and Windows sensed it, you’re looking at the desktop. If your machine is only touch, you may be in tablet mode already.)
This (see Figure 1-2) is where the finger pickers live. They can tap and swipe and pinch and nudge to their heart’s content.
FIGURE 1-2: Tablet mode, a good place for touch-first types.
Wait. Don’t panic.
That brings you back to Figure 1-1. Which is probably where you wanted to be.
Although tablet mode is designed for people who want to use a touchscreen, not a mouse, there’s no law that says you’re stuck in one persona or the other. You can flip back and forth between regular mouse-first mode and tablet mode any time.
Navigating around the Desktop
Whether you use a mouse, a trackpad, or your finger, the desktop rules as your number-one point of entry into the beast itself.
Here’s a guided tour of your PC, which you can perform with a mouse, a finger, or even a stylus, your choice:
1 Click or tap the Start icon.You see the Start menu (refer to Figure 1-1).
2 Tap or click the tile on the right marked Mail.You may have to Add an Email Account, but sooner or later, Microsoft’s Windows 10 Mail app appears, as in Figure 1-3.FIGURE 1-3: The Mail app is indicative of the new Windows 10 apps.
3 Take a close look at the Mail app window.Like other app windows, the Mail window can be resized by moving your mouse cursor over an edge and dragging. You can move the whole window by clicking the title bar and dragging. You can minimize the window — make it float down, to the taskbar — by clicking the horizontal line in the upper-right corner. And, finally, you can close the app by clicking the X in the upper right.That may seem pretty trivial if you’re from the Windows 7 side of the reality divide. But for Windows 8/8.1 veterans, the capability to move a Metro app window around is a Real Big Deal.
4 At the bottom in the taskbar, to the right of the Search box and Cortana icon, click the Task View icon (shown in the margin).The desktop turns gray, and your Mail window shrinks a bit. Your Timeline— a kind of reminder of what you were doing once upon a time — appears, spread across the page. A New Desktop icon, shaped like a + sign, is at the top.
5 Click the + (New Desktop) icon.Windows 10 creates a new, empty desktop, and shows it to you in task view. See Figure 1-4. Note how the Mail app shows up on Desktop 1, and Desktop 2 is blank except for your wallpaper.FIGURE 1-4: Windows 10 lets you create as many desktops as you like.
6 Click Desktop 2, on the right. Then click or tap Start, and choose the Weather app. Finally, click the Task View icon.Windows 10 pops back into task view, showing the Mail app running on Desktop 1 and the Weather app running on Desktop 2. In addition, the background for Desktop 2 has darkened, and you can see a slimmed-down version of the Weather app on the Desktop 2 desktop. See Figure 1-5.FIGURE 1-5: Two desktops, each with different programs running.
7 From the screen shown in Figure 1-5, right-click (or tap and hold down on) the running Weather app and choose Move to, Desktop 1. Then hover the mouse over the Desktop 1 thumbnail at the top, without clicking it.You’ve just successfully created a second desktop, and then moved a running application from one desktop to another. The results should look like Figure 1-6. That’s a quick introduction to the Timeline, task view, and multiple desktops.FIGURE 1-6: Both of the apps are running happily on Desktop 1.
8 Click the X button in the top-right corner of the Mail and Weather apps. Then click or tap the Start icon again.Windows 10 brings up a more-or-less alphabetized view of all your apps, in the second column of the Start menu.
9 Scroll down to Windows Accessories, click the down arrow to its right, and then on Paint.The Paint app appears, just like in the good old days, as shown in Figure 1-7. Note that the Start menu’s apps list has a few collections of programs, like Windows Accessories. When you install new programs, they may build drop-down menus on the All Apps list, as you see with Windows Accessories, but far more commonly they just get dumped in the list. That gives you lots of stuff to scroll through. Also note that the running app — Paint — has an icon down on the taskbar (in this case, in the middle) and shown in the margin. When you close Paint, the icon disappears. If you want to keep Paint on the taskbar, right-click the icon and choose Pin This Program to Taskbar. That’ll save you a scroll-scroll-scroll trip through All Apps the next time you want to run Paint.FIGURE 1-7: The Paint app in Windows 10.
10 Click the X button in the top-right of Paint. Again, click or tap Start. This time click or tap one
