WP8 Newbie Tips

[thekonger]

I thought it would be nice to start a thread that shows simple 'aha' moments you found when using WP. Some of these probably seem silly and obvious to others, but I am the kind of person who rarely reads a manual and enjoys finding shortcuts from others.

I have one here for Integrated FB, Twitter, etc in one spot in people hub.

Another one is in the people hub, you can click on the blue letter and it pops up a list of all the letters. I was pressing and holding, trying to swipe the side, etc and couldn't figure that out for days. Of course like I said, I could always go back and read.

Nah...

Anyone have any other quick help tips they found?

 

[Dave Blake]

Great idea for a thread I think we need to sticky this one.

I have one. If you highlight a word in internet explorer like you are going to copy it then tap the magnifying glass it will start a search for that word in Bing.

 

[ncxcstud]

Pressing and holding within a text box will bring up the cursor icon. This makes editing typos so much easier.

 

[ivirsnezbit]

If you have multiple apps opened. Holding the back button, brings up a screenshot of each which you can scroll & switch between them.

Don't know if this is new to windowsphone8 from 7.

 

[msdugn]

Groups and Group Live Tiles

I saw the 'Steve's Phone' Windows Phone ad that had multiple people in a single live tile (at :28). I didn’t know what it was, until I found someone describe it as a ‘group.’ Turns out that if you create a group of people in the People Hub (or if groups exist in Outlook under Contacts | New Contact Group, or in Windows Live/Hotmail under Contacts | Category), you can get updates from this select group of people collected in one place. The updates include everything they're connected through (Facebook, personal email, work email, Twitter, etc.).

I created one with my coworkers and the live tile calls out and tallies emails and updates from them separate from the email deluge in my inbox. I created another for my family and it's great to see their FB posts and emails called out separately. Existing Outlook/Windows Live Mail groups are already there too. So I can pin a Live Tile for my church group that's been in WIndows Live for months and see updates from those folks too. Once you have group, make it a Live Tile by pressing and holding a group until it lets you pin it to start.

Seems like a nice way to focus on a select group and separate them from the noise of the other inputs.

 

[msdugn]

Customize Lock Screen
While it’s been easy to customize your lock screen with static images, WP8 lets you customize the lock screen with app data and/or live tile information. Just go to Settings | Lock Screen | “Open this app to let it make changes” | click the APP button, go to your app (say the HTC app that includes newsfeeds, weather, stocks), pick the screen you’d like to have as your new lock screen and you’re done. This works for all apps enabled for this feature like music (have your artist display on your lock screen while music plays), Bing (Bing’s desktop of the day), Facebook, etc. Mine is set to HTC’s local weather conditions.

 

[gapost]

When you press the microphone button, it records one sentence. When you press it again, unlike WP7 where it deletes and starts over, it adds another sentence. And what is really good, they finally put that feature in the email app!!

 

[thekonger]

Nice gapost, just tried this.

 

[thekonger]

PG2G just gave me a great tip, under messaging go to settings and enable 'Group text' so you can send and receive texts where all recipients see the and can respond to the group. Again, probably a simple setting most people know of, but it's not on by default and I didn't know how to turn it on.

 

[hopmedic]

PG2G just gave me a great tip, under messaging go to settings and enable 'Group text' so you can send and receive texts where all recipients see the and can respond to the group. Again, probably a simple setting most people know of, but it's not on by default and I didn't know how to turn it on.

Some of us on Verizon have already discussed this on other forums, but for those who don't know, it appears Verizon has disabled this one for us. BOO!

 

[hopmedic]

If you pin the Store tile to the start screen, when there are updates available for any apps that you have installed, the live tile will show the number of apps that have updates available.

 

[DeathBreath]

When you are in your email, you can check an email by touching the far left of the screen next to the email you want to check. This will bring up the check box for all emails. You can touch the far left screen again to close it. This is opposed to selecting the check box icon at the bottom of the screen which is a bit slower.

 

[DeathBreath]

If you tap the up or down volume, it brings up the volume number and ring/vibrate up top. You can tap the ring/vibrate icon on the right to mute or ring your phone.

 

[GreenScrew]

Long press the keyboard period (.) for pick list of common punctuation!

Press and drag from number key to select a single number or punctuation instead of toggling the keyboard to the number layout.

 

[msdugn]

Long press the keyboard period (.) for pick list of common punctuation!

Press and drag from number key to select a single number or punctuation instead of toggling the keyboard to the number layout.

Nice one! I didn't know either of these. Saves me a few keystrokes now!

 

[TechAbstract]

Nice one! I didn't know either of these. Saves me a few keystrokes now!

Not just the . button. There are some other buttons will give you more options.

 

[gapost]

In Settings, swipe left and go to Background tasks. When you load up programs, a lot of them want to do things in the background that will take up the battery. Turn off any background programs you do not want running. For example, MetroTube wanted to run background tasks. Don't know why, but I shut it off. Of course, you can run the programs with the background tasks shut off.

 

[hopmedic]

In Settings, swipe left and go to Background tasks. When you load up programs, a lot of them want to do things in the background that will take up the battery. Turn off any background programs you do not want running. For example, MetroTube wanted to run background tasks. Don't know why, but I shut it off. Of course, you can run the programs with the background tasks shut off.

Yes, and the programs should work properly, but the background tasks won't run. As a developer, I can say that developers should write their apps in a way that they will still work without background tasks enabled, and they will still work properly. For instance, if something in my app requires a bg task, the app should check to see if that task is blocked, and if so, pop up a message telling the user that a certain function needs to use a bg task or it will not run. That way the user knows the reason, and knows the consequence, and has the choice.

 

[thekonger]

Nice features I found here: Twenty Top Windows Phone Tips and Tricks. Many more at the link.
[h=3]The calculators you didn't know you had[/h] Start Calculator and then rotate your Windows Phone to the left and to the right - the interface will change into scientific and a hexadecimal calculator respectively. Who needs a third party calculator when all this number goodness is built in?


[h=3]Filmstripped photos[/h]When you've got a lot of photos to browse through (e.g. in your 'Camera Roll'), looking for a particular one, rather than swipe photo by photo, display one of them, rotate the phone into landscape mode and then pinch 'in' (i.e. the opposite of the 'splay' you'd use for zooming in). Your photos will then be displayed in a fast-swipeable filmstrip. Size-wise, this is halfway between the tiny thumbnails in the top level image view and full-screen versions, and is perfect for flicking sideways to find specific photos in a hurry.

 

[Etyrnus]

If you have your cellular data turned off, pics sent thru text messaging will not come thru. It will say Get content now (file size).