Drag the bar on top of the icons down all the way to hide all icons. Or just drag it down as far as you want displayed (I like just one row of my favs). It will keep that setting whenever you drop the full-screen display.
Make a folder and put all of the icons you don't want on your main page and move all of those unwanted icons into that folder. Put that folder somewhere other than the main page and there you go......
Touch the All banner and swipe it down so no icon rows are showing.
Thanks again for your help. Maybe next time I'll just PM my question to you.
Like I said when I first got the phone it was doing it by itself when I hit the escape key, not sure why it's not doing it now. But now I know how to do it.