Customization of the Start Screen
It is extremely customizable. Each tile can be arranged at any position that you like, through drag and drop. This flexibility of arranging tiles according to your taste is a great killer feature. Divide the tiles in any types of blocks you want to, like, a browser block containing all the browsers, an entertainment block containing Photos, Video, Music, and other entertainment apps, a social block containing Twitter app, People app, Mail app, Messaging app, etc.
The bottom line is: No two customized Start Screens will ever look same!
Here is my customized Start Screen as an example.
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Figure 2 Customize Start Screen to make it look what you like it to be[/caption]
I have simply arranged the tiles in a way that I get to access my most frequently used applications as fast as possible (laziness, you see!).
You can pin new programs to the Start Screen, including the traditional apps. Just use the option “Pin to Start” in the context menu of a program.
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Figure 3 Pin a traditional app to Start Screen[/caption]
The Start Screen itself has several contextual options. If you click on an empty part of the Start Screen, it will give you a toggle option to show/hide all the apps. This will change the Start Screen to show tiles for all the installed apps, instead of only selected ones.
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Figure 4 Context option to show all installed apps[/caption]
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Figure 5 Start Screen showing all installed apps[/caption]
Customize a Tile
You can customize a single tile. Right click on the tile that you want to customize. A context menu will slide up from the bottom for the tile. You can toggle the tile size (larger or smaller), unpin the tile so that it no longer displays on the Start Screen, or uninstall the app corresponding to the tile. [caption id="attachment_20653" align="alignnone" width="640"]
Figure 6 Various options to customize a tile[/caption]
You can also customize multiple tiles at once. Right click on all the tiles that you want to cuztomize. This will slide up a context menu from the bottom. At this time, the only customization available is to unpin multiple tiles.
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Figure 7 Customize multiple tiles at once[/caption]
Settings Charm of Start Screen
The Start Screen has its own Settings Charm. It provides options like clearing live data on the tiles, toggle display of tiles for administrative tools, and a menu to help you navigate your ways around the Start Screen. [caption id="attachment_20649" align="alignnone" width="640"]
Figure 8 Settings Charm of Start Screen[/caption]
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Figure 9 Tiles Setting in Settings Charm[/caption]
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Figure 10 Help settings in Settings Charm[/caption]
User Account Options on Start Screen
Other than that, Start Screen gives you user account options like- Change account picture.
- Lock the screen.
- Sign out of the user account.
- Switch to another user account.
Figure 11 User account options on Start Screen[/caption]
Conclusion
The newly introduced Start Screen is highly customizable. It becomes what you want it to be. Your wish is its command. It provides you with plethora of information, options to launch and uninstall applications, user account settings, etc. It follows the Metro concept of emphasizing content beautifully.]]>
