Jerry Nixon @Work: Mango Sample: a Secondary Tile in 5 Minutes

Jerry Nixon on Windows

Friday, January 20, 2012

Mango Sample: a Secondary Tile in 5 Minutes

imageYour Windows Phone application is fast. Your Windows Phone application uses animations. Your Windows Phone application is Metro. How can you make it better?

Think about your user at a bus stop. They see the bus coming. “Oh!” they think, remembering they need some information from your app. Can they get to it before the bus arrives?

Tiles

Every application has a primary tile – it is displayed in the application list or start screen.  Here’s how they are structured:

AP_Tiles_TileComponentsFront

Secondary Tiles

A secondary tile is another door to your application – instead of the typical front-door, secondary tiles let users skip to important parts directly. They can look like your primary tile, or any way you want them. Let’s create one together:

Unable to display content. Adobe Flash is required.

Get the code here.

Conclusion

Adding secondary tiles makes your application that much more friendly and useful to your users.

Remember, we are fighting against UNINSTALL!

Best of luck!