• Otherwise, a new thread is created and added to the top of the threads list.
To deal with a Messaging notification, just click it and you’ll be brought into the Messaging app where you can read the entire message and reply if necessary.
Of course, notifications are, by definition, interruptions and you may want to configure the way the system deals with notifications globally or for Messaging particularly.
As with other apps, you can configure some notification settings in Settings, Permissions, including whether Messaging notifications are enabled in Windows and on the lock screen.
Notifications can also be globally and temporarily toggled on or off using the Settings pane. To access this interface, type Winkey + I or open the Charms bar and then select Settings. From this interface, you can select the Notifications icon near the bottom of the pane to toggle this functionality, as shown in Figure 8-44.
Figure 8-44: Notifications can be toggled globally, on the fly, using this icon.
That functionality is nice from time to time, such as when you’re busy working and don’t want to be disturbed. But as you use Windows 8 more and more, you may find that you want to change the way Messaging notifications work going forward. This happens via the new PC Settings interface. (You can reach PC Settings at any time by accessing the Settings pane and selecting More PC settings.)
A few relevant options here include:
• Notification sounds: We happen to find the chime that rings each time a notification appears to be annoying. If you do too, change the option titled Play notification sounds to Off.
• Show individual app notifications: You can determine whether individual Metro-style apps, including Messenger, can even display notification toasts. Given the nature of this app, we recommend leaving notifications on for Messaging. But if you’re not interested, you can disable this behavior.
Snapping Messaging
Messaging provides a reasonably useful snapped experience by which you can snap the app to the left or right side of the screen alongside another Metro-style app or the Windows desktop. In this mode, only one of Messaging’s panes can be seen at a time, as shown in Figure 8-45.
Figure 8-45: Messaging app in snapped mode
Most Messaging functions work just fine in this mode. You can view individual message threads, add messages to an existing thread, and, via the hidden app bar, change your status or start a new message thread.
SkyDrive
For years, Microsoft has offered a cloud storage service called SkyDrive that has offered an industry-best allotment of free online storage—7 GB most recently—but few ways to use it effectively. As a result, SkyDrive had been largely ignored by the computer-using public, while competing offerings from Apple (iCloud), Amazon (Cloud Player and Cloud Drive), and Google (Google Play and Google Drive) have grabbed all the headlines.
SkyDrive has had a few names over the years, including Windows Live SkyDrive. Today, however, it’s referred to as Microsoft SkyDrive, or simply SkyDrive.
That’s changed. And while there are many reasons why SkyDrive is central not only to Microsoft’s vision for Windows 8 specifically, but also for all of its consumer-oriented offerings generally, here’s one pertinent fact that may drive this home nicely. Windows 8 doesn’t provide a way to browse the local filesystem from the new Metro environment. But it does offer a way to browse your SkyDrive storage, and the SkyDrive app is a neat little solution for those of us with our heads—well, our data at least—in the clouds.
There is one important consideration with the SkyDrive app. We mentioned early in the chapter that the People, Mail, Calendar, and Messaging apps require you to sign in with a Microsoft account, though you can do so even if you’re signing in to the PC with a traditional local account. The SkyDrive app does not allow this: To use this app, you must sign in to the PC with a Microsoft account. To change how you sign in, you can visit PC settings, Users, and then select Switch to a Microsoft account. (Or, if you’re using a domain account, you can connect a Microsoft account to that domain account.)
Understanding the SkyDrive App
The SkyDrive user interface, shown in Figure 8-46, replicates the folder structure of your SkyDrive storage.
You can also install the SkyDrive application for the Windows desktop and view and manage your SkyDrive-based storage from there.
To understand how this is so, compare it to the web-based view of the same SkyDrive account, which is shown in Figure 8-47. Restyled to resemble the Metro app, the SkyDrive web interface also utilizes Metro-style elements to represent folders and files, providing a more consistent experience.
Figure 8-46: The SkyDrive app
Figure 8-47: SkyDrive on the web now resembles the Metro SkyDrive app too.
Navigate inside one of the folders in the SkyDrive app and you’ll see a similar Metro treatment applied to documents as well. In Figure 8-48, you can see a SkyDrive-based folder that contains both subfolders, on the left, and documents and other files, which are displayed on the right.
Figure 8-48: Documents in the SkyDrive app
Beyond that, SkyDrive offers browser-like navigational controls, including a large, obviously placed “Back” icon in the top left of the screen. Keyboarders can also use the browser-based Alt + Left Arrow shortcut to navigate back if they’d like.
As with other picker-style Metro user experiences, there’s a subtle widget next to the SkyDrive title. Click this widget, which resembles a downward-facing arrow, and a small menu, or jump list, appears, as shown in Figure 8-49. This menu lets you jump to frequently needed locations, including the root of your SkyDrive storage as well as virtual views such as recent documents and shared documents.
Figure 8-49: SkyDrive’s jump list
Opening and Editing Documents and Other Files
