The App Bar
You can hunt around all you like, but you
won’t find menu bars, toolbars, or taskbars anywhere in Windows 8’s new
interface. The only “bar” you’ll (eventually) see is a new interface
element called the app bar (or sometimes application bar),
which contains app-related commands, features, controls, and settings.
In any new Windows 8 screen—the Start screen, the Apps screen, a
Windows 8 app screen, and so on—you display the app bar by using one of
the following techniques:
• Right-click the screen.
• Press Windows Logo+Z.
• If you’re using a touchscreen, swipe up from the bottom edge of the screen (or swipe down from the top edge).
App bars are context sensitive,
meaning that what you see when the app bar slides into view depends on
what you right-clicked (or what is currently selected if you press
Windows Logo+Z or swipe from the bottom or top edge). For example, Figure 3
shows the app bar that appears when you right-click the Start screen
(or when you press Windows Logo+Z or swipe from the bottom or top edge
with nothing selected). In this case, you see just the All Apps button,
which you click to display the Apps screen and view all your installed
apps.
Figure 3. The Start screen’s app bar.
However, if you right-click a Start screen
tile (or swipe down on a tile if you’re using a touchscreen), the app
bar that appears contains a few extra commands related to just that
tile, as shown in Figure 4 (we’ll talk about these commands later in this chapter).
Figure 4. A Start screen tile’s app bar.
Note
To dismiss the app bar without doing
anything, right-click the same object, press either Esc or Windows
Logo+Z, or repeat the swipe gesture that you used to invoke the app bar.
You see yet another version of the app bar when you invoke it within a Windows 8 app. For example, as you can see in Figure 5, bringing up the app bar in the Weather app displays two
elements: one along the bottom of the screen and another along the top.
Some apps display two app bars, whereas in others only a single app bar
appears, either at the top of the screen or at the bottom. (This lack
of consistent app bar placement is yet another maddening element of the
new interface.)
Figure 4.5. The Weather app’s two app bars.
The Charms Menu
The other piece of the Start screen chrome
that you need to know about is the Charms menu, which you invoke by
using one of the following techniques:
• Move the mouse pointer to the
top-right or bottom-right corner of the screen, and then when the
Charms icons appear, move the pointer straight down to display the full
Charms menu.
• Press Windows Logo+C.
• If you’re using a touchscreen, swipe left from the right edge of the screen.
Figure 6
shows the Charms menu. Note, too, that Windows also displays a box
showing the current date and time, the Network icon, and the Power icon.
Figure 6. The Windows 8 Charms menu.
The Charms menu offers the following items (yes, they’re called charms; we don’t know why):
• Search—Click this charm to search your PC.
• Share—Click this charm to use a Windows 8 app (such as Mail) to send a file or some app data to a friend.
• Start—Click this charm to return to the Start screen.
• Devices—Click this charm to open a screen that shows you all the major devices and hardware doodads attached to your computer.
• Settings—Click this charm to configure various Windows 8 options and settings.
