Arranging the Desktop - Sections, Screens, Swipes and the Lock

Touch and hold an empty square and tap Edit the desktop. The same is in the Start menu on the taskbar as Edit desktop contents.

Every square now shows a card with clear edges, and the taskbar shows Done and a + button. While arranging:

• Touch and hold a square, then drag it to another place.
• Drag the corner handle of a gadget to make it bigger or smaller.
• Tap the remove mark on a square to take it off the desktop.
• Tap + to add something. It goes into the first free place, or into a new row below everything when the desktop is full.
• Tap Done when you are finished.

The upright and the sideways screen keep separate layouts, so you can arrange each one the way it suits best.

When the desktop is longer than the screen, a scroll bar appears along its right edge. Swipe to scroll, or grab the bar and drag it to jump quickly.

While you drag a square, hold it near the top or bottom edge and the desktop scrolls - the closer to the edge, the faster - so you can drop it in a row that was out of sight. Wide gadgets placed against the right edge are fitted inside the grid, so they never cover their neighbours.

A section is a heading with the rows under it, such as Main, Apps or App functions. Tap a heading to fold its rows away; tap it again and every square comes back to exactly where it was. A small arrow beside the name shows whether the section is folded, so a folded section is never mistaken for an empty one. Folding is remembered separately for the upright and the sideways screen and survives a restart.

Touch and hold a heading to open Section Actions: Rename Section, Re-sort Section or Delete Section. Deleting asks first, and removes the heading together with the shortcuts under it - you can add them again later. While arranging, the same menu opens from the button on the heading, and holding the heading drags the whole section.

To start a new section, choose Create a section.. when adding an item and give it a name, for example "Work".

Touch and hold an empty square, tap Wallpaper, and under Screens set Number of screens. Swipe left and right to move between them. Turn on Show screen number to see which screen you are on while you page.

To move a square to another screen while arranging, tap it and choose Move to screen 2 (or whichever screen you want). Or drag it to the left or right edge and hold it there a moment: the desktop turns to the previous or next screen and you drop the square where you like.

Open the launcher settings - Launcher settings in the long-press menu - and find the Gestures group. Tap Swipe up, Swipe down, Swipe left or Swipe right and pick an action from the list: the same actions the edge gestures offer, plus the launcher's own All apps, Next screen and Previous screen. For Open app or Open URL, the row App to launch below it asks which app or web address.

At the start, swiping up opens All apps - once you have reached the bottom of the desktop - and swiping down opens the Android notification shade. Left and right have no action, so on a desktop with several screens they turn the pages.

When swiping down opens the shade, where the swipe starts decides what you get: from the left half of the screen the notifications, from the right half Quick Settings.

A swipe works when it starts on an empty spot, on a shortcut, on a section heading or on the taskbar. On a gadget, the gadget keeps its own gestures - a map still pans and a list still scrolls. More gestures are in Customizing navigation gestures and shortcuts.

In the launcher settings, Desktop group, Grid density sets how many squares fit in a row: Sparse, Standard, Dense or Very dense. Sparse gives big squares, easy to hit on a car screen; very dense fits the most on a tablet.

When the desktop is the way you like it, touch and hold an empty square and tap Lock changes. From now on a long press does not open the menu or start moving things. If someone tries, a short message says The desktop is locked. Unlock it in launcher settings.

To unlock, open the launcher settings, Desktop group, and turn off Lock desktop. The same switch locks it too. Edit desktop contents in the Start menu keeps working even while the desktop is locked, so you are never shut out of your own layout.