Howto connect my website to an Metro style app

Question

I have a website but I also want to create a metro style app for this website. Of course I don't want to update the content at two places so my app has to be connected tot the website. When I add (for example) a newsitem to the website this has also to show up in the app. I searched the internet to find this out. But sofar did not find a simple solution or example. I want to use javascrip/html5.

Answer 1

Hi Mike,

It seems what you are describing is a WebBrowser.  Windows 8 comes already with a Metro style WebBrowser.  What would be the benifit of a Metro style app in this scenario?  Can you expand on the details of your design?

-Jeff

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Jeff Sanders (MSFT)

Answer 2

You're right. What I want to do, as an experiment, is to transform my website into an app. Later on I want to extend the app with some extra features (calenders, foto upload from mobile device,etc). This is more a kind of learning experience.

Answer 3

Hi Mike,

I understand... You can render your existing pages easily in an app.  A lot of it you could just include as is.  Navigation would be a little tricky because you would want the links to refernce your local app page (myapp.html) instead of a fully qualified url (http://mysite.com/myapp.html).  I would take the body of each of my web pages and paste this in to a new page for the app.  You could use the Navigation template as a good starting point.  I would break the script out of the pages (if it is in there) and create a separate .js file for each page.  You can search in samples for using the various Metro style app features you wish to include.

This will help you understand the basics of Metro style app programming and if you get into any trouble, you can post questions up on the forum.

-Jeff

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Jeff Sanders (MSFT)

Answer 4

Hi Mike,

I understand... You can render your existing pages easily in an app.  A lot of it you could just include as is.  Navigation would be a little tricky because you would want the links to refernce your local app page (myapp.html) instead of a fully qualified url (http://mysite.com/myapp.html).  I would take the body of each of my web pages and paste this in to a new page for the app.  You could use the Navigation template as a good starting point.  I would break the script out of the pages (if it is in there) and create a separate .js file for each page.  You can search in samples for using the various Metro style app features you wish to include.

This will help you understand the basics of Metro style app programming and if you get into any trouble, you can post questions up on the forum.

-Jeff

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Jeff Sanders (MSFT)

Hi Jeff,

Thanks so far,

Let's say I want to newsitems on my webpage show up in the app. Can you recommend a sample app to look in?

Answer 5

These might help!

http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsapps/site/search?query=rss&f%5B0%5D.Value=rss&f%5B0%5D.Type=SearchText&ac=8

And these quickstarts:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/br211385.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh452768.aspx

-Jeff

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Jeff Sanders (MSFT)