Using Live Tiles in Windows 8

Live Tiles are interactive apps on your Windows 8 Start Screen that provide you with dynamic information and quick updates about the app without the need to launch the application. These tiles are connected to people, applications, photos, folders, or websites. To get live information, you need to have access to the internet.

Each app has their own charms and defaults, but most of them that come with Windows 8 have similar setup options. In this article, we will be using the Weather app as an example to learn the basics on how to customize apps and live tiles.

Changing Celsius to Fahrenheit and vice versa

1. On the Start Screen, click on the Weather app.
2. Right click on the screen to bring up the charms. For touch sensitive device, flick upwards from the bottom of the screen.
3. To change the degrees from Celsius to Fahrenheit, click Change to Fahrenheit on the charms bar found at the bottom right of the screen. When it’s already in Fahrenheit, the option you will find is Change to Celsius.
4. There is also a Refresh option at the bottom right if you want to get the latest weather updates. Again, you need to have an internet connection for this.

Adding Favorite Places

1. On the Weather app, bring up the charms by right clicking or flicking upwards from the bottom of the screen.
2. Click on Places at top left side of the screen; here you will find the list of your Favorite Places.
3. To add another Favorite Place, click on the Plus (+) symbol. On the Enter Location field, type in a name of a place to do a search. A list will appear matching the name you’ve typed in, select correct one, and click Add.
4. You may add a couple more places as you like.

Set a place as default, pin it to start, or remove it from the list

1. Go into the Weather app; go to the list of Places by clicking on the back arrow at the upper left of the screen.
2. Select a place from the list. Right click or flick upwards from the bottom of the screen to bring up the charms.
3. At the bottom left of the screen, you have options to Set as default – the selected place will be displayed as default on the tile on the Start Screen, Pin to Start – a new, separate live tile for this particular place will be added on the Start Screen, or Remove – deletes the selected place from the list.

Unpin, resize and move tiles

1. To unpin or remove a tile from the Start Screen, right click on that particular tile. Click Unpin from Start found at the bottom bar displayed on the screen.
2. To resize the tile, right click on the tile. At the bottom bar, click Smaller to make a large tile smaller or Larger to make a small tile larger.
3. To move a tile to another location on the Start Screen, simply click, drag and drop it to anywhere you want.

Note that the things you can do with the apps will depend on the individual app, so you will need to explore on how you can customize the other available apps. Although the live tiles give you immediate, up to date information, for any depth of that information you will most certainly need to go into the app and open it.

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Simon Calder

Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA. He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!