Windows Phone folders: A new way to organize Start screen

OldGuyGeek · Aug 6, 2014

Folders is a great update to the App Folders utility that is available in Windows Phone 8.0. If you want to group programs, here's a video on creating folders. Please note that it won't convert to the new way of making Screen Folders, but it should help you get your stuff organized so when you do update to 8.1, you'll have an idea on what works for you. Then you only have to replicate it in 8.1.

[video=youtube_share;vSiriKadF1k]http://youtu.be/vSiriKadF1k[/video]

HippsieGypsie · Aug 6, 2014

Thank you both for the info. :thumb: These are great additions! Can't do this with the old icons!

Coming off an Android I have a lot of catching up to do.....

Coke Robot · Aug 7, 2014

I have the update and tried it out, eh. It's just another generic feature android and ios have that I've lived without for years now and don't care for. Having the tiles smaller means I can have a full three screens worth of live tiles on Start. I can't even figure out what to even group together.

On a side rant though, I miss the days where Windows Phone was uniquely different and stood out from the crowd. I miss the in-system apps like the old Zune player and the tight social network integration. Now it's all just handled externally by apps and thus, the experience becomes more generic to appease the ios and android crown in hopes of converts. I could care less about converting android users or ios users by introducing similar features that work similarly. I care more about features and design that makes the whole worth switching platforms for. Back in Windows Phone 7 to me was the UI design and how uber metro it was and how the whole experience really did feel like you were putting people first, not the OS. Nowadays, it's just about the apps and making Windows Phone seem more like ios or android to the point where it's just a generic haze in the whole grand scheme of things. ios is just like Windows Phone but with rounded corners and no live tiles, android is soon to be more like Windows Phone in style with more '60s Star Trek coloring. Sigh.... :think:

Tepid · Aug 7, 2014

Coke Robot said:
I have the update and tried it out, eh. It's just another generic feature android and ios have that I've lived without for years now and don't care for. Having the tiles smaller means I can have a full three screens worth of live tiles on Start. I can't even figure out what to even group together.

On a side rant though, I miss the days where Windows Phone was uniquely different and stood out from the crowd. I miss the in-system apps like the old Zune player and the tight social network integration. Now it's all just handled externally by apps and thus, the experience becomes more generic to appease the ios and android crown in hopes of converts. I could care less about converting android users or ios users by introducing similar features that work similarly. I care more about features and design that makes the whole worth switching platforms for. Back in Windows Phone 7 to me was the UI design and how uber metro it was and how the whole experience really did feel like you were putting people first, not the OS. Nowadays, it's just about the apps and making Windows Phone seem more like ios or android to the point where it's just a generic haze in the whole grand scheme of things. ios is just like Windows Phone but with rounded corners and no live tiles, android is soon to be more like Windows Phone in style with more '60s Star Trek coloring. Sigh....

I have seen this same comment elsewhere on the net.....
It is not even CLOSE to Android or iOS. Not even the same ball park.

I really do not get how anyone can look at Live Folders and call it Android/iOS rip off.

Sorting is not that difficult.
I put all travel apps together,, maps, gas buddy, other that have to do with traveling
Food stuff like Yelp (which could go under travel) but is better suited under Food
like All Recipes, etc.

It's not that hard really. Camera and Video go under one.
Having them there does make it faster to get to.

As for the Social Network Integration, I never really got into all of that myself.
However, I still get Twitter and Facebook updates in the Me Tile/Phonebook.
I have all the people I am following in my address book based on Twitter and can go there and find the
person or twitter feed I want and see what is new just from them.

They did do the right thing with pulling them apart,
And that choice has already been explained. It makes it easier to update the apps individually and quicker.
As before, they had to wait and update them all at once with an OS Update.
Slower update process, means slower improvements to the apps people really want the most apparently.
Facebook/Twitter/Instagram, blah blah bblah.....

The Music player is getting better, but then I never had issues with it.
It works, it doesn't lag for me, I don't have issues.

Live Folders have taken things to a whole new level.
I think people are just so iOS'ed and Androidized they
can't see past the same old BS they have been using now , for getting near a decade.
I have 4 email accounts I follow...
I drop them all under one Live Folder
I have them set as Wide Tiles under that
I can glance at the Live Folder and see which icon and how many emails there are
I can tap it and see all the headers of the most recent email
Yes, I can get the same info from the Action Center, but that is besides the point.
I don't see Android and iOS doing this. Oh, redundant, so what is the point.
trust me, there is one, and it works.

Not to mention that the Live Folder themselves (based on size) show you information that is under it.
Not just an icon.

I'll take Live Tiles and Live Folders with Information at a glance over what> Nested icons only?
Really? Seriously? Just like iOS and Andriod? Come on........!!!!

People need to be deprogrammed from the Android/iOS UN-imaginative
eco system of endless back and forth to just check for a bit of info.

But don't worry, iOS/Android are going to make revolutionary changes that only they could copy Live info and do it better
making it the best thing since sliced bread and the world will rejoice.

Coke Robot · Aug 8, 2014

Tepid said:
Coke Robot said:

I have the update and tried it out, eh. It's just another generic feature android and ios have that I've lived without for years now and don't care for. Having the tiles smaller means I can have a full three screens worth of live tiles on Start. I can't even figure out what to even group together.

On a side rant though, I miss the days where Windows Phone was uniquely different and stood out from the crowd. I miss the in-system apps like the old Zune player and the tight social network integration. Now it's all just handled externally by apps and thus, the experience becomes more generic to appease the ios and android crown in hopes of converts. I could care less about converting android users or ios users by introducing similar features that work similarly. I care more about features and design that makes the whole worth switching platforms for. Back in Windows Phone 7 to me was the UI design and how uber metro it was and how the whole experience really did feel like you were putting people first, not the OS. Nowadays, it's just about the apps and making Windows Phone seem more like ios or android to the point where it's just a generic haze in the whole grand scheme of things. ios is just like Windows Phone but with rounded corners and no live tiles, android is soon to be more like Windows Phone in style with more '60s Star Trek coloring. Sigh....

Click to expand...

I have seen this same comment elsewhere on the net.....
It is not even CLOSE to Android or iOS. Not even the same ball park.

I really do not get how anyone can look at Live Folders and call it Android/iOS rip off.

Sorting is not that difficult.
I put all travel apps together,, maps, gas buddy, other that have to do with traveling
Food stuff like Yelp (which could go under travel) but is better suited under Food
like All Recipes, etc.

It's not that hard really. Camera and Video go under one.
Having them there does make it faster to get to.

As for the Social Network Integration, I never really got into all of that myself.
However, I still get Twitter and Facebook updates in the Me Tile/Phonebook.
I have all the people I am following in my address book based on Twitter and can go there and find the
person or twitter feed I want and see what is new just from them.

They did do the right thing with pulling them apart,
And that choice has already been explained. It makes it easier to update the apps individually and quicker.
As before, they had to wait and update them all at once with an OS Update.
Slower update process, means slower improvements to the apps people really want the most apparently.
Facebook/Twitter/Instagram, blah blah bblah.....

The Music player is getting better, but then I never had issues with it.
It works, it doesn't lag for me, I don't have issues.

Live Folders have taken things to a whole new level.
I think people are just so iOS'ed and Androidized they
can't see past the same old BS they have been using now , for getting near a decade.
I have 4 email accounts I follow...
I drop them all under one Live Folder
I have them set as Wide Tiles under that
I can glance at the Live Folder and see which icon and how many emails there are
I can tap it and see all the headers of the most recent email
Yes, I can get the same info from the Action Center, but that is besides the point.
I don't see Android and iOS doing this. Oh, redundant, so what is the point.
trust me, there is one, and it works.

Not to mention that the Live Folder themselves (based on size) show you information that is under it.
Not just an icon.

I'll take Live Tiles and Live Folders with Information at a glance over what> Nested icons only?
Really? Seriously? Just like iOS and Andriod? Come on........!!!!

People need to be deprogrammed from the Android/iOS UN-imaginative
eco system of endless back and forth to just check for a bit of info.

But don't worry, iOS/Android are going to make revolutionary changes that only they could copy Live info and do it better
making it the best thing since sliced bread and the world will rejoice.

Live folders are the Windows Phone version of ios' app folder grouping. Straight and simple as that's EXACTLY what ios does except without live tiles. I don't know what android does for sure as there are several skins that do different things and don't please me. But if it means pinning MORE content to the Start Screen and not having to rely on an external notification tray, then it's not so bad. Don't get me started on the notification center, bleh. I see little to no use of it, it's only used personally from the lock screen if it is or whilst in driving mode.

Myself and everyone except three people have issue with Xbox Music in 8.1. It's incredibly laggy, slow, and every update is almost just an update to change the numbering. Nothing is being really helped. I'm going to see on a Lumia 635 if it's as terrible as now. I get they had to rip things apart to be able to update them, that's great, but the way things have been executed I'd rather take constant system updates than deal with half-arsed, half-baked, poorly executed coding any day. I mean seriously, the latter has yet to even prove to be better. It's shown to be a HUGE step backwards. These days, you can't be releasing a music playing app that can't even play local files in a timely fashion; not because it's a hardware limitation of yesteryears, but awful coding. Something so trivial like Xbox Music shouldn't be the focal point of criticism because it's LITERALLY that trivial. Music players aren't supposed to be an awful experience to use.

Then there's the People hub, now in 8.1, should be just renamed Contacts+trickle feed of social networking. It's not the People hub anymore, it's a fancy contacts app. Don't get me wrong, it basically was a gloried contacts app, except it was a whole aggregator of social networking feeds in one place. It was a step forward in simplicity. But now, it's more just view a news feed, jump to the app EVERY single time you want to view a picture or post a comment. Then what's the point of the People hub? Just use the app. That was what made Windows Phone 7 so great to me, when ios and andorid's mottos were basically, "There's an app for that" Windows Phone already does that.

8.1 to me is more a step forward, two steps back coming as an early adopter. There are things great about it, but there is also things not to like.

Tepid · Aug 9, 2014

You may need to reset your phone.

I did this on a whim (but I did not allow it to auto restore the phone) as I was having the lag issue with the Live Lock Screen Beta
Most everything else ran fine, but I also wanted to see if battery would be improved
I had read that was the case, but I didn't notice any more drain on the battery from WP8 to 8.1 anyway.
It didn't help with the battery, I am getting what the specs pretty much say I would get.
But the unlock my phone lag is completely gone.

What I also did was, went to the phone store on my PC and downloaded all my apps using the Download and install manually links
about 90 or so.

I lost Let's Golf 2, cause I got it free through a promotion, it's ok though, no big deal.
and Windows Phone Insider

But, after I reset my phone, I copied all my apps to a sub-folder under the root of the Icon Phone
go to store and hit the 3 dots, tap on Install local apps
All your apps will be listed, and you can hit select all and install
You may have to do this a couple of times and some installs may fail, but it's ok, they all reinstalled without issue
Was the easiest reset I have done actually, without doing the auto-restore.

My phone is still running great, and with GDR1.

As for People Hub, Twitter is pretty much automatic, and Facebook can be linked.
However, there are some issues with Facebook still. It does need a lot of work in this area
I can't get it to sync. and this appears to be an issue a lot of people are having.

However, I will say, they still did the right thing de-integrating it from the OS.

While I am not a big social network person, I am interested to see how it all works, so I am working on it and testing it out.
It is very convoluted and Facebook is not really working, so I get your point. It does need a ton of work.

Over all, I am still very happy with WP8.1 Update.

Coke Robot · Aug 9, 2014

I'd hate to have to do a hard reset on my phone when I already have a developer ROM flashed on it. I'm just too lazy.

I've read the hard reset will fix Xbox Music issues, it could. It seems the recent update for it is actually getting somewhere in terms of performance, but again, such poor execution on such a trivial part of the OS.

Tepid · Aug 10, 2014

You won't be taking it back to WP8. 8.1 and GDR1 will still be there. You won't have to reinstall them.

Yeah, I agree, to an extent. It software, so glitches in an update like 8.1 are bound to happen. I accept it, nuke and reload and move on. It works, so......
No one ever claimed computers and OS's would work 100% every day all day forever.

Windows Phone folders: A new way to organize Start screen

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