Programmaticaly access to Live Tiles

Question

Hello,

 I've got a couple of questions on Windows 8 Live Tile items:

1. How and where this collection of Live Tile items is stored?
2. How can I programmaticaly modify size, position and other related info of Live Tile items? Does these items similar to ordninary ".lnk files"? Is there an API like Shell API for ".lnk" files?

Thank you in advance!

---

Truly yours, Marat

Answer 1

Hello Galeyev.Marat,

Look at the following information about Metro tiles.

Getting started with Metro apps development
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/windows/apps/br211386

Guidelines and checklists for Tiles
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh465403

Look at this thread with a similiar issue.
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/toolsforwinapps/thread/bdc52bcd-01ce-4aa6-aa46-dc400c508371

If you still have questions about developing tiles, it would be best to ask in the programming language you are using.

UI Design for Metro style apps:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-us/winappsuidesign

Tailoring your app for hardware and devices
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/tailoringappsfordevices

Building apps with HTML5\JavaScript
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/winappswithhtml5

Building apps with C++
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/winappswithnativecode

Building apps with C# or VB
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/winappswithcsharp

Building games with DirectX
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/wingameswithdirectx

Tools for Metro style apps
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/toolsforwinapps


Hope this helps.

---

Marilyn

Answer 2

 I haven't discovered yet where is the state of the specific tile is stored, saying 'state' I mean current size and position of the item on the Live Tile.

@ Marat

Have you looked at the  TileCache*.dat  files yet?   It appears that they only get updated in certain circumstances,  restarting after  shutdown.exe  /s  /full  for one.   So that implies that the Tiles state is largely transient, e.g. probably somewhere in the virtual memory of explorer.exe most of the time.

 

HTH

Robert Aldwinckle
---

Answer 3

Robert, do you know what each of them is used for

No.  I'm mystified by them--see the other thread I linked to in my post about them.   Especially how dir/ta/od  in a cmd window reports misleading information.   For example,   dir/ta/od  *.dat   shows they were all last accessed when they were written (ignoring all my reads using Notepad)?  And according to  dir/tw/od *.dat  my Logo one was written several days later.   WTH?

I am also wondering why are they named Cache if this is the only place where info about positioning is stored? Is it realls so, that there is no API to get info about positioning, colors, size and other related stuff?

Hopefully this is just some temporary implementation we are seeing pre-beta.   I definitely hope that the final implementation is not as obscure as this appears to be.

 

Robert
---

Answer 4

Robert,

I have also found that there is a special API for Tiles' manipulation in Windows Phone http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh202948(v=vs.92).aspx . I very frustrated, why there is no such for Windows 8 yet...

 

---

Truly yours, Marat

Answer 5

Hi Marat,

There are API for Tiles similar to the Windows Phone 7 API that you mention. Both API allow an app to define its own tiles. Neither allows control over where the tile is positioned or which size it takes. In both Windows Phone and the Windows 8 Developer Preview the user controls which apps display tiles, where the tiles are placed, and if the tiles are wide or narrow (assuming the tile supports both - an app may choose to support only narrow tiles).

See Creating and using tiles, toast, and Windows push notifications and the Basic Tiles, Advanced Tiles, and Secondary Tiles samples.

Trying to modify the tiles by manipulating undocumented files or registry entries is not supported, not recommended, and definitely not safe to rely on in production code.

--Rob

see http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winappswithnativecode/thread/53c1b951-89b8-4067-bcaf-13f1f2ac48e2 for an answer...

---

Truly yours, Marat

Answer 6

 I found that [drive]\users\[username]\appdata\roaming\microsoft\windows\appsFolder.itemdata-ms changes right away when I change position of some element on the Live Tile.

This is clearly a more important piece of the implementation than the TileCache* stuff that I found.   One user has apparently exploited it to change the Default Start Screen on his machine

https://chentiangemalc.wordpress.com/2011/11/02/customizing-default-start-menu-in-windows-developer-preview/

(BING search for
    appsFolder.itemdata-ms
)

 

So, depending on the intent of your "programmatic modification of the Start Screen" that could be a simpler approach.

 

---

---