10 Things to Know About Windows Phone 8.1 Notifications & Action Center
The way Microsoft has implemented Windows Phone 8.1 Action Center and rethought notifications is just mind blowing. It’s a warm welcome by all Windows Phone users. Also, this marks filling up an important feature that was missing in Windows Phone since beginning.
In this post, I am sharing some of the most important features, tips and knowhow of using Action Center and Notifications.
Notifications from Lock Screen:
Swipe down when on lock screen and you can still peek at the notifications and toggle the quick settings button. Anything else, like tapping on a notification or when you access all settings, will result in phone unlock.
Access Action Center or Notifications while Gaming:
Action center is available even when you are playing a game or anything in full screen mode. All you need is swipe from top to bottom and you should see Action Center Drawer appear. Now pull it down to reach it.
Clear All or Group Clear:
Notifications appear in the Action Center in grouped fashion which could be by App or by Individual items like Email Accounts, Contact and so on. You can either clear all of them by tapping on “Clear All” on top left, below Quick Settings, or swipe a group to left and it disappears.
Sadly, there is no way to remove individual notifications in the group as of now.
Wi-Fi Quick Settings is not a Toggle:
It seems MS decided to make WiFi quick settings a button to launch the settings instead of making it a true toggle. So for users who just want to turn on or off Wi-Fi have two steps like in earlier version. There are few possible reasons around this.
- So if you keep on connecting to a new WiFi all the time, this approach is better.
- Most of the users will have WiFi on all the time. So if you connect to a known network, it will automatically happen
- If you want to turn it off, you may use the option to turn it on automatically based on time i.e. In 1 hr or 4 hr. You can also turn on based on your location.
- If you have Cortana, Say “Turn off WiFi” and it does the job
Customize Quick Actions:
Go to Settings > Notifications + Actions. This will list existing quick actions as buttons. Tap on any of them and you can choose from Airplane Mode, Bluetooth, brightness, camera, Internet Sharing, location, project my screen, quiet hours, rotation lock, VPN and Wi-Fi.
Phones like the Lumia 1520 and 1320 will have 5 settings compared to small settings which will have 5 such quick settings.
Swap Between Quick Actions:
Lets say, you have quick actions as 1. WiFi 2. Quite Hours 3. Airplane Mode 4.Bluetooth. Now If you want Bluetooth to be the first option and not Wi-Fi, follow the steps:
- Go to Settings > Notifications + Actions
- Now tap on the one you want to replace. In our case, we tap on Wi-Fi
- Select Bluetooth
Your WiFi and Bluetooth have now switched places!!
Control App Notifications:
Windows Phone team did a brilliant job by giving granular controls for Individual Apps on how they send notification. You can not only disable them from appearing them in the Action center but also control about showing banner or the toast notification, sound and vibration. You may choose different sound for different app.
Types of Notifications: Banners, Sounds and Vibrations
- Banners: These are nothing but Toast Notification which appear on top of the screen when an app gets an update.
- Sounds: Select from system sound from Windows Phone, Nokia or just leave to default. You may also choose none to turn it off completely.
- Vibration: If you feel that they consume more battery, keep vibration on for few.
Master Control for Notifications:
If you want to control the volume of notification, the only way out is using the sound control panel which appears on top of the screen when you press volume up and down.
By default it only shows volume level for Ringer + Notification. You need to tap on the down arrow to expand. This will have two settings, one which I just mentioned above and second would be for Apps + Media.
Turn off Sound of Media, Ringer and Notification Instantly:
Hit the volume up or down and it will display the Volume control notification. Now instead of decreasing or increasing the sound to zero, you can tap on the bell or the music icon to instantly turn everything off.
Also, the vibration mode will be enabled only if you have that option turned on.
