Live Tiles are the "front door" for metro apps on Windows 8. Can you instead launch a website instead of a Metro app?
Could you write an app that just does one thing, and that is to launch the browser with the specified Uri:
Launcher.LaunchUriAsync(new Uri("http://my.website.com"));
That has the advantage that it is represented as a traditional app rather than a pinned site, so you can style the tile as you wish.
The closest thing I could find is pinned sites or site tiles.
It doesn't look like you can customize the look and feel of these site tiles, but you can update them with notification counts.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2012/04/03/pinned-sites-in-windows-8.aspx
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I have responsive website and wanted to create app for windows phone. So is there any way to make the same? online or by using any other technology (like phone gap or something else). It means my website URL load on click of app icon.
There are different ways to do that. Basically you have three ways (but there are more!) to consider:
Native universal HTML5/JS app: Create a native app using HTML5 and Javascript directly. There is a nice jumpstart available in the Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA): http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/training-courses/developing-universal-windows-apps-with-html-and-javascript-jump-start
WebView in a C# app: You can also add a WebView to a C# app and run your code inside a browser. This is done quite often - especially if developers want to port a web app very quickly to Windows Phone since all you have to do is to adjust your paths and you're good to go. There's a video on Channel9 by Bob Tabor: http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/Windows-Phone-8-1-Development-for-Absolute-Beginners/Part-13-Working-with-the-Web-View-App-Template (This video is part of another MVA course: WP 8.1 app development for absolute beginners)
3rd party frameworks: You can use third party libraries like PhoneGap / Cordova to run your code. This is very much like 2. as your code is also executed in a browser. The advantage is that you can easily deploy your code on other platforms but you might run into performance issues under certain circumstances.
So if you want to load your page if you click on your app icon (2) might be your best shot.
For Windows 10 Universal Apps you can do that very easily using the Microsoft project Westminster:
https://dev.windows.com/en-us/uwp-bridges/web-apps
Step by step guide is here:
http://microsoftedge.github.io/WebAppsDocs/en-US/win10/CreateHWA.htm
It takes about five minutes to make the app, and then maybe a few hours to polish it, make the right icons from the Windows store etc.
It seems to me that if the user installs another browser on Windows 8, the default tile for Internet Explorer should change to that new browser. However, it doesn't seem like Chrome or Firefox currently does this. Is it even possible to replace the IE tile with the tile for another app programmatically?
You can't do that.
All Windows store applications work in a sandbox environment and doesn't have access to core OS api's. App's are restricted to core OS api's so that malicious applications cannot change system setting without user knowing about it.
Start Screen is OS level, and Apps do not have acces to the order of tiles. If they had, user would loose all personalization made as every App would move itself to the first row and column, as Raymond Chen stated.
Is it possible to create an app that "only" shows while using Share charm? I do not want the fullscreen app to be opened via live tile as there is no content to be displayed. I want it to be displayed only through Share charm.
No, it is not possible for an app to be shown only as a Share target. All Windows Store apps have a tile on the Start Screen that can be used to launch the app.
I have read some posts on S/O and also around the web. We are producing a HTML5 JS based web app that runs on the web. We are packaging it up for Google apps, and also for phonegap.
Can we package this app for windows 8? Of course, I appreciate it won't use the windows 8 features. But, will the app run none the less, as it stands. So that we can place it in the store and build out windows 8 features as we move forward.
I appreciate this is a slightly non-concise question, but I guess the real point is what is our quickest route to take our existing HTML 5, CSS, JS App and deploy it in the store and get it working on this platform.
In general, the answer is yes. The transition is not seamless, but you will be able to use a ton, if not all, of the application artifacts in Win8. A good test is if you can run it in IE10, you can run the app as a Win8 app. Again, this is a very broad brush - things you need to worry about are things like all scripts files need to be local (no CDN), changes to web and security contexts, and the fact that Win8 is a horizontal paradigm whereas most web apps are vertical. But in general, you should be able to make the move. Usual caveat - your mileage will vary.
Yes, although not recommended, you can package your existing app for Win8. You'll need to add a few bits of code though. The minimum would be to embed your app's start/init code within WinJS's first promise callback, like so:
args.setPromise(WinJS.UI.processAll().then(function () {
// your init code
}
You'll also need to create a couple of icons for the start screen and an image for your app's launch screen.
It is possible that you'll run into a few issues, like some security related restrictions, where you'll have to modify your code to use some native WinJS functions. This all depends on you app's implementation.
You can also check Microsoft's guidelines for migrating a web app to win8, here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh465143
we are doing a product display iPad app and don't want customers to be able to quit the app pressing the home button. We're planning to use only UIGesture to let the admin users to quit. How to programmatically lock an iPad app into one single application without install any third party app or profile?
There is a feature for this added in iOS 6 Beta 2 called Guided Access, see http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/06/26/ios-6-guided-access/
Install the iPhone Configuration Utility: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1465?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
Make a .mobileconfig with the SBStoreDemoAppLock property set to true
Install the mobile config on the device.
Installation of the mobile config can be done using either the iPCU app or by opening the file with Safari on the device.
Now the device is in kiosk mode and the home button is disabled.
Remove the .mobileconfig file (again using the iPCU app) and reboot the device to re-enable the home button.
I believe that the common solution to this problem is a case that covers the home and power buttons. In practice, you'll want something that is fairly robust to prevent theft of the iPad, and that neatly covers access to the dock connector whilst providing power.
A quick google search of iPad kiosk case turns up plenty of options. Use of iPads as PoS displays in stores and at trade shows is incredibly popular.