Page 142 - Windows 10 May 2019 Update The Missing Manual: The Book That Should Have Been in the Box

Once you know what to look for, you can distinguish an open program from

a closed one, a frontmost window from a background one, and so on (see
Figure 2-17).

Handy Window Miniatures

If you point to a program’s button without clicking, it sprouts thumbnail

images of the windows themselves. Figure 2-17 shows the effect. It’s a lot
more informative than just reading the windows’ names, as in days of yore

(previous Windows versions, that is). The thumbnails are especially good at
helping you spot a particular web page, photo, or PDF document.

Tip
When you point to one of these thumbnails, a tiny Close button ( ) appears in each thumbnail,
too, which makes it easy to close a window without having to bring it forward first. (Or click the
thumbnail itself with your mouse’s scroll wheel, or use your middle mouse button, if you have
one.) Each thumbnail also has a hidden shortcut menu. Right-click to see your options!

Full-Size Peeking

Those window miniatures are all fine, but the taskbar can also show you
full-screen previews of your windows. It’s a feature Microsoft calls Peek.

Mouse/trackpad: Point to a taskbar button to make the window
thumbnails appear. Then, still without clicking, point to one of the
thumbnails.

Touchscreen: Tap an app’s taskbar icon to make the window
thumbnails appear. Now touch the same taskbar icon a second time

and pause; without lifting your fingertip, drag onto one of the
thumbnails.

Windows displays that window at full size, right on the screen, even if it
was minimized, buried, or hidden. Keep moving your cursor or finger
across the thumbnails (if there are more than one); each time you land on a

thumbnail, the full-size window preview changes to show what’s in it.