Left-Bottom Corner This corner activates the Start Screen.
How to activate the corner
Bring the cursor on the left-bottom corner. The corner displays a preview of the Start Screen. Don’t try to go at the center of the preview, though. It will vanish. Simply click the corner, and the Start Screen animates in. Keyboard Alternative: Windows Key Feeling nostalgic? Yeah, Microsoft seems to have intentionally used this corner to activate the Start Screen; the corner that usually has the Start Button (unless you change the position of the task bar, of course!).Left-Top Corner
This is a multitasking corner. It lets you switch between applications. You can either switch directly to the most recently used application or cycle through a “Switch List” of the recently used applications to select the desired app.How to Activate the Corner
This time, the mouse movement is a bit tricky.- Switch to the most recent app: Bring the cursor to the left-top corner. It will show the most recently used application. Click the corner. The app will swipe in.
- Cycle through the Switch List: Bring the cursor to the corner, and then slide down the edge. The Switch List will appear from the edge. Select the desired app from the list.
Figure 2 Left-top corner displaying the Switch List[/caption]
Note that the Switch List doesn’t list the traditional (non-metro) applications. It simply lists “Desktop” as an application. The traditional applications can be cycled through the usual “Alt+Tab” key combo.
Right-Top and Right-Bottom Corner
Both of them perform the same job: to activate the Charms Bar. The Charms Bar provides an easy and contextual access to services like search, share, device access and settings.How to Activate the Corner
Move the cursor the either of the corners. A partial Charms Bar swipes in from the right edge. However, it is not yet activated. To activate it, slide down/up the edge. This will activate the bar completely. [caption id="attachment_20602" align="alignnone" width="640"]
Figure 3 Right-top and Right-bottom corners with the Charms Bar[/caption]
These two hot corners also summon a non-interactive pane on the bottom-left part of the screen. It contains information like current date and time, and the network connectivity.
Conclusion
With the introduction of the Hot Corners, every part of the screen has now come alive. This might take time to get used to, though. An accidental mouse movement to the corner may create some annoyance for you. But this is what the corners are going to be from now on. Alive, Hot and Ready to Serve.]]>Article Tags:
Hot corners · Intro to the Windows 8 interface · Windows 8 · Windows 8 Tutorial · Windows 8 Tutorials
All Comments
All I can find is people talking about what these corners do and how to disable them. I loved them and they suddenly disappeared and I cannot figure out what I did to make them disappear or how to get them back. In settings, I have enabled/checked the allow corner stuff everywhere I find it.