>>>step-by-step: Displaying the Apps Panel
The apps panel is a new feature for navigating
among open apps that showed up in Windows 8 Consumer Preview. Now you
can “bump” your mouse against the top left corner of the screen to
display a small thumbnail of an open app. When you move the mouse
downward, additional app thumbnails appear in the panel. You can then
click the app you want to move to.
1. Move the mouse to the upper left corner of the screen and “bump” the mouse against the edge. The top thumbnail appears.
2. Move the mouse downward along the left edge. Additional thumbnails appear.
3. Click the thumbnail of the app you want to display.
Moving among Apps
The easiest way to move among different open
apps is to pull them in from the left side of the screen. This kind of
“app cycling” enables you to page through the different apps in order.
1. Press and drag at the left edge of the screen (either with your finger or the mouse button).
2. Drag in from the left toward the center of the screen. The next open app appears on top of the previous app.
You can continue cycling through the open apps in this way until you find the app you want.
Alt+Tab Still Works
Of course if
you’re familiar with pressing Alt+Tab to display thumbnails of open
applications and cycle through until you choose the one you want to
display, you’ll be pleased to know that this technique still works with
Windows 8. Just press Alt+Tab and a small popup box appears, showing you
the thumbnails for open applications. Continue to hold Alt down while
pressing Tab to move through the open apps. When the app you want is
highlighted, release both keys and the app opens on your screen.
>>>step-by-step: Tiling Apps
Knowing that we often want to work with more
than one app open on the screen at a time, Windows 8 developers created a
technique we can use to tile open apps to anchor one along the edge of
the screen while we cycle through the other apps we want to use.
1. Open the apps you want to use.
2. To anchor an app, drag it in from the left to the right side of the screen, and flick it toward the top of your screen.
Get Me Back to Full-Screen
When
you want to do away with the tiling effect, tap or click the divider
and drag it to the right, off the right edge of the screen. The app that
was in the left window then becomes the only app visible on your
screen.
