It is important to know some key shortcats in order to be productive and efficient when working in Windows 8 specially in Metro style Mode. Since any Metro App does not have Exit option it is important to know how to return back or how to log off or turn off our PC.
Since there is no Exit command in Metro, applications cannot be exited in the traditional way. In fact every Metro style app has three states Active- when it is showed on screen, Suspended- when it is in background and Destroyed- when OS kill the process of your app. When other Windows 8 Metro app is launched, the previous application goes off the screen and becomes suspended. After about 5 seconds application goes to transient state. It is important to know that suspended apps are not removed from memory, but all their threads are suspended. On that way suspended application can be activated and showed on the Metro screen immediately. On the other hand suspended apps don’t consume energy or they consume energy in minimum amount. Suspended apps can be terminated of a low memory condition. This is the case when the application is relaunched as a new run. During relaunching it can be implemented so that the app can restore its state from persistent storage and appear to the user as if it has never been gone.
At the end of this blog post let’s review the shortcuts for some action in Windws 8 Metro:
- winkey – switch between Desktop and Metro mode
- winkey+L – Log off from the Window current session
- winkey+F – Open Metro Search engine for searching different content: Apps, files, settings, etc
- winkey+P – Change Monitors layout.
- winkey+any – Starts searching for content.
- winkey+ESC – Back to Desktop mode (Windows 7++).
- winkey+i – Setting of Desktop, Power, Audio and Network.
- winkey+o – Lock screen rotation.
- winkey+d – Whos Desktop mode (Windows 7++)
- winkey+h – Open the share charm
- winkey+k – Open the connect share charm
- winkey+TAB – Toggles between opened apps
- winkey+SPACE – Toggles input language and keyboard
- winkey+c – Open the “charms bar” (share, settings, shutdown)
- Mouse RClick on App Tile – shows the App Bar with advanced option.
- ALT+TAB – Switch between apps.
- Press any key – Unlock screen
- CTRL+SHIFT+ESC – force to close metro app, since there is no Exit option in app.