Fluent Windows® 8.1 App Development

14. The Application Lifecycle

Back in the days when Grandma was young, an application was either running or it wasn’t. The most complicated thing you had to deal with was a command line argument or a file association. Your application stopped running either because the user closed it or because it (or some other application) crashed. Ah, the simplicity of bygone days.

In Windows 8.1, your app might start running because the user tapped its Start Menu tile, but they might have tapped a secondary file that they created or they might have chosen a charm like Search or Share. Or File Open. Or because they plugged in a device your app is registered to handle. Or because they’ve decided to print or update a file your app handles. Or because they’ve ...