Windows 8 Application Development with HTML5 For Dummies

Chapter 8

Building Tiles and Using Notifications

In This Chapter

Adding live tiles for your app

Notifying the user to changes in your app

Using Toast to get information to your users

Although new to Windows programming, tiles are pretty familiar to anyone who has built Windows Phone apps or used an Xbox 360 recently. They are the new icons of the Windows world, and much more too.

Tiles represent the personality of your app. They are a button to click and launch, yes, but they are also a window into the application when it isn’t running. The Windows 8 start screen should have the feeling of being alive, and the tiles play a big role in that.

Your apps can send text, images, and even animations to the tile when it’s running. When it’s suspended, it loses this ability, but that’s okay. If you remember to update things when you go into suspension, it seems to the user that the tile is representing the current state of the app.

Beyond updating from the client app, Windows also allows Live Services to update your tile from the Internet. It’s a way to push the usual rules of Windows 8, and have your app be alive when it isn’t running.

Outside the scope of the tile itself, other features ...