Windows 8 Start Screen - Custom Tiles App & Screenshot Thread

CrimsonKnight13

CrimsonKnight13

Lord Stabington of [H]ard|Fortress
Joined
Jan 8, 2008
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Through @ASUSUSA, I found out a very awesome app for creating custom tiles for the Start Screen.

OblyTile
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1899865

I think this app will go a long way for many [H] enthusiasts.

Here's a screenshot of my own creative work of my games & game client tiles. I consider this v1 at the very least. Once I figure out better images & editing, I'll post more.

 
Awesome!

I'm going to be wasting a lot of time on this :D
 
Tsumi said:
Awesome!

I'm going to be wasting a lot of time on this :D
Click to expand...

I burned a few hours getting everything right & I will probably put in many more looking for even better images via Google Images & DeviantArt :)

Not to mention that I'll put countless more when I install new games.
 
wonderfield said:
Very nice. Wish this functionality was built into the OS, though.
Click to expand...

I've been wanting square & rectangle tile customization support since the first public beta but I don't think MS is listening too much at the moment.
 
The dev told me that he's looking into wide tile creation. I hope that happens. :)
 
Thanks for this! I love customizing my OS and making it mine, so this will help out a lot.
 
CrimsonKnight13 said:
I've been wanting square & rectangle tile customization support since the first public beta but I don't think MS is listening too much at the moment.
Click to expand...

Maybe they will, I think at this point they're trying to address the usability of some functions and bugs. There are still a bunch of things that don't quite work just right.
 
One could argue that it is a usability issue to those of us don't like cookie cutter design or lack of customization. ;)
 
Customizing icons doesn't affect usability, but bugs do ;)
 
can I just say... I love you man! This was one of my biggest complaints with the UI, now if we could get sub folders in the UI that would be awesome!

I thought my workaround for games was going to be to use steam in big picture mode and add my non steam games, set the custom artwork for those games and be done. It would all fit together nicely.
 
For now, for folder-like arrangements, try to use groups. They work reasonably well for Start Screen organization, but you'll need to keep the number of items down to get good benefit from it. Treat tiles as if they're 'favorites' and it shouldn't get too out of control.
 
wonderfield said:
Treat tiles as if they're 'favorites' and it shouldn't get too out of control.
Click to expand...

This. What I think is kind of funny for me is that I ended up pinning notepad, paint, and calculator to the start menu. I probably use those 3 as much as another other program.

I'm definitely going to look into groups though as they might fix some of the issues I have with the way tiles are laid out. I wish I could have gaps like I can on WP7. Instead it automatically just swaps the tiles places.
 
Tsumi said:
Customizing icons doesn't affect usability, but bugs do ;)
Click to expand...

You're quite right. :) Lack of customization is just a nag.

nintari said:
can I just say... I love you man! This was one of my biggest complaints with the UI, now if we could get sub folders in the UI that would be awesome!

I thought my workaround for games was going to be to use steam in big picture mode and add my non steam games, set the custom artwork for those games and be done. It would all fit together nicely.
Click to expand...

Very welcome! I just wanted to bring this app to everyone's attention here since I know a lot of people have been griping about the lack of customization with the Start Screen. The dev gets full credit for tackling the issue.

I'm waiting for the day when I can use the Steam game header art to make wide tiles. I'll just replicate the appearance of Steam in the Start Screen! :D

wonderfield said:
For now, for folder-like arrangements, try to use groups. They work reasonably well for Start Screen organization, but you'll need to keep the number of items down to get good benefit from it. Treat tiles as if they're 'favorites' and it shouldn't get too out of control.
Click to expand...

I was pondering dividing my games into genres but that got to be more of a hassle than just having all of my games in one big group. Seems my usability preferences change with interface differences pretty quickly.
 
I'm still trying to pin down how icons are supposed to be vertically aligned in tiles. There doesn't seem to be any consistency at all to the way Microsoft does it (typical), and there are no tile icon design guidelines I can find on MSDN. This is making this process a little more frustrating than it needs to be.
 
Groups are arranged in this fashion:

It will fill up in sets of two tiles. So once you have two tiles in a group, the next tile will be the next row down. And so on until the rows are filled to whatever arbitrary limit there is, which is based on your screen resolution. Once it's reached the lower limit, it will start another set of two columns, filling it in pretty much the same way. Double-wide tiles fill up both spots in the column.

Groups are independent of each other, and there is an extra-wide space between them.
 
Anyone have screenshots to share?

I should have a updated screenshot by the weekend.
 
bAMtan2 said:
"Waste" is the important word here.
Click to expand...

CrimsonKnight13 said:
But it's the waste that falls into the category of "ooooh, shiny".
Click to expand...

Exactly. Just like a lot of people "waste" their time sleeving cables, "waste" their time doing cable management, "waste" their time doing watercooling, etc.

It's not like we're changing the basics of the Metro UI, this is just custom look tiles. Functionality is still the same.

On a side note, has anyone noticed that if you right-click on any folder or application in explorer, there's now an option to pin to Start?
 
I've been messing around some, but I'm really not sure what I want to do with it yet.

capturedsl.jpg
 
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CrimsonKnight13 said:
Yeah, for a lot of files but still nothing for URL/URI shortcuts.
Click to expand...

At the moment, only IE10 has the native ability to add URLs to the Start Screen, and it will only open with IE10. Seems like a feature that needs to be built into the web browser, not the OS.
 
Tsumi said:
At the moment, only IE10 has the native ability to add URLs to the Start Screen, and it will only open with IE10. Seems like a feature that needs to be built into the web browser, not the OS.
Click to expand...

I sure hope that Steam supports pinning to the Start Screen at the very least, even if Gabe N. has a hatred for the Windows 8 Store.
 
Getting there.

capturedsl.jpg


Trying to avoid just using it as a giant dock but apparently that's what I am going to do with it.
 
cerwinvega said:
Trying to avoid just using it as a giant dock but apparently that's what I am going to do with it.
Click to expand...

That's all Metro is for desktop PC's at this stage of the game, that is literally all. Once you accept as such its not end of world.
 
odditory said:
That's all Metro is for desktop PC's at this stage of the game, that is literally all. Once you accept as such its not end of world.
Click to expand...

Can't really argue against that :)

I've pretty much gotten used to it already, 99% of the time it's just Win Key - type app name - enter key anyway, just like before with 7. I tried to keep an open mind with it going in, even after messing with the DP/CP and not really being all that impressed.

I really don't have any complaints. I thought I would, but after a few days, the only thing I've come across that isn't working as it should is chat links sent in mumble aren't working, and that's on mumble, not Win 8.

Anyway, I better cut it short before I have people telling me how wrong I am for not being utterly disgusted with it :)
 
i bet somebody will bundle these into something so i dont have to do any work myself ;O
 
Letting users bundle them into ZIP files with an XML/JSON/YAML manifest would be a big help to that end.
 
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