This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
The Home Screen
After you complete the initial setup, press the Home button (the one that looks like a house) to get to the home screen. The Carousel contains thumbnails for your books and recently accessed content and websites. Swipe or flick across the Carousel to browse the items available there. Tapping an item opens that item. You can’t change the order of items in the Carousel; the most recently accessed items always appear first.
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The Navigation menu provides quick access to the various content libraries available on the Kindle Fire. If you select a specific content library, the Carousel shows content from only that library. Swipe or flick across the Navigation menu to see additional categories of content.
The Quick Links bar provides thumbnails of content related to the content in the center of the Carousel. If the Carousel displays a book at the center, for example, the Quick Links show books that other readers of that book have purchased through Amazon. Some apps provide Quick Links to tasks within that app. If the Carousel is focused on the E-mail app, as shown here, the Quick Links provide options to send a new message or view your Favorite Contacts.
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Downloading Items
The Carousel displays both items on your Kindle Fire (called device items) and items that you’ve previously purchased that are in your online library (called cloud items). If you want to open a cloud item, you first need to download it to your device.
- Swipe to the item you want to download.
- Tap the item to download it to your device.
- While the item is downloading, you can tap the X to cancel the download. After an item has been downloaded, it is a device item and can be accessed at any time, even when the Kindle Fire is not connected to Wi-Fi.
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Removing Downloaded Items from Your Kindle Fire
After an item is downloaded, it takes up some of the memory on your Kindle Fire. The amount of memory you have available varies by which model of the Kindle Fire you own. You can free up memory by removing unused items from your device. This removes only the device copy of the item; this content is still available to you in your cloud library, so you can download it again at a later date.
- Tap and hold the item you want to remove.
- Tap Remove from Device.
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Adding an Item to Favorites
The Favorites drawer appears below the Carousel when you press the star icon in the lower-right corner. It provides a convenient way for you to access your most-often-used items. You can add any item to Favorites.
- Tap and hold the item you want to add to Favorites.
- Tap Add to Favorites.
- Tap the Favorites icon.
- Your Favorites appear on shelves below the carousel.
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Removing an Item from Favorites
If you decide that you no longer want an item to be listed in Favorites, you can remove it.
- Tap and hold the item in Favorites.
- Tap Remove from Favorites.
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Rearranging Favorites
By default, items are listed in Favorites in the order in which you add them. If you want to rearrange your Favorites, you can easily do so.
- Tap and hold the item you want to move. Don’t lift your finger, even when you see the Remove from Favorites menu pop up.
- Drag the item to the new location.
- Release the item.
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Changing the Screen Timeout
While you’re learning how to use your Kindle Fire, particularly if you are doing each task as you follow along with this book, you might get frustrated if the device automatically goes into sleep mode just as you’re about to reach for it. Your Kindle Fire’s screen turns off automatically after 5 minutes without use. You can adjust the timeout or completely turn off the automatic timeout.
- Tap the top of the screen (where the name of the device and time are displayed) and drag down.
- Tap More.
- Tap Sounds & Display.
- Tap Screen Timeout.
- Select a screen timeout period.
- Press the Home button to return to the home screen.
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