[louzer]

One of the things I really liked about the 1.x OS was the ability to drag app icons onto the tab name to put a copy in that tab. In 2.0, the names are gone and the tabs are freeform.

The problem is that the install of OS 2.0 left you with one or maybe two tabs containing all of your apps with no particular order or arrangement. I like the concept of folders, but I like the tabs better since it makes more sense to me to swipe left and right to find additional apps than it does to drill into folders and then close them when I find I opened the wrong folder.

So my tip is 2-part. The first is to share my use case for folders and tabs. The second is to show a trick to more easily create these tabs.

In short, I'll choose to use folders to contain like-documents (bookmarks, local html files, etc that can exist as desktop icons) and simple app groupings that make sense (mostly to put on the quick launch bar). I'll create tabs to hold groupings of apps (audio/video, graphics, games, go-to apps, etc).

Now, to set up the tabs, I found that it's really tedius because once you've created your third tab, moving an app from tab 1 to tab 3 means dragging it from tab 1 to tab 2, and then from tab 2 to tab 3.

What I discovered is that it's a great time saver to create folders in your first tab for each grouping of apps that will exist in different tabs. Once the folder contains all of the apps you'll want in your new tab, you only need to drag one icon (the folder containing the apps) across multiple tabs instead of each individual icon for each app.

Then, when you've got your new folder in your new tab, simply press and hold the folder in it's new tab location, tap the delete button, and the folder itself is deleted and the app icons appear in the new tab.

If you want to streamline the process even more, you can drag your new folder icon to your quick launch bar (assuming you have < 6 apps on there), swipe to the new tab, and copy it down. If you do have 6 (the maximum number of apps in the quick launch bar) already, temporarily pull one off to make space and put it back once you're done rearranging.

[BrizzadMan]

Thanks! I do like the old tabs, and found I just ended up re-creating the same categories again with folders (with a couple extra though).

[Willardv]

Forgive me - how exactly do you create a tab?

[ralfyguy]

Forgive me - how exactly do you create a tab?

Yeah, how did you do it?

[TerribleTim68]

Yeah, how did you do it?

When you click and hold on an icon, they begin pulsing, this is when you can move them. It will also create a temp tab to the far right of all existing tabs that you can drag them to. If you do not drag anything to the temp tab, the tab goes away when you are done moving icons.

[ynotbme]

I really like the feature of creating folders. I have created folders for less used apps like games, utilities. Also like the ability to add tabs. I wish we could name the tabs however. I know where things are, but if my wife (who doesn't use it as much as me) is looking for something, I can't just say look in the media tab.

[louzer]

I really like the feature of creating folders. I have created folders for less used apps like games, utilities. Also like the ability to add tabs. I wish we could name the tabs however. I know where things are, but if my wife (who doesn't use it as much as me) is looking for something, I can't just say look in the media tab.

The ability to name the tabs would be very helpful. What I miss is the ability to drag an app onto the tab name to move the app to that tab. That would eliminate having to to drag it across multiple tabs. But, like I said, my workaround for that is to leave an empty space on the quick launch bar so that I can drag there, switch tabs beneath, and then drag off the quick launch bar into the correct tab.

The one thing that's jumping out at me based on the real free-form nature of the UI is how useful a Univeral Search feature would be for the Playbook. Then, no matter how you organize your apps, instead of having to swipe through many tabs trying to locate an app, you could simply start typing it's name and it would show up.

[xboxuser]

The ability to name the tabs would be very helpful. What I miss is the ability to drag an app onto the tab name to move the app to that tab. That would eliminate having to to drag it across multiple tabs. But, like I said, my workaround for that is to leave an empty space on the quick launch bar so that I can drag there, switch tabs beneath, and then drag off the quick launch bar into the correct tab.

The one thing that's jumping out at me based on the real free-form nature of the UI is how useful a Univeral Search feature would be for the Playbook. Then, no matter how you organize your apps, instead of having to swipe through many tabs trying to locate an app, you could simply start typing it's name and it would show up.

YES I AGREE, JUST LIKE MY APPLE IPOD TOUCH does that has a universal search, if im looking for a document , app or anything i just start typing and the icons show up instantly..

[louzer]

YES I AGREE, JUST LIKE MY APPLE IPOD TOUCH does that has a universal search, if im looking for a document , app or anything i just start typing and the icons show up instantly..

I know. Universal search on the BB phones has spoiled me. What would be really cool, though, would be if the Playbook had a universal search feature that not only searches the Playbook, but if bridged to a phone, would also search the phone too!

[klc99]

Is there any way in 2.0 to make a COPY of an icon? In the original, I was keeping an alphabetical list of all my apps in the "All" panel, and then making functional groupings of things in the others. Now it seems that if I move an icon into a panel, it can't also exist anywhere else... so if i use it in different ways or along with different other apps, I can't necessarily keep a shortcut sitting in that folder or panel.

Or is there a way to copy an app icon?

[meierjn]

So.... How does one create a folder?