Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 Unleashed, Third Edition

Introducing the Modern UI

To start to understand the differences between the two Windows 8 UI personalities and the change in design approach from Windows 7 to Windows 8, one needs look no further than the Windows 8 start screen (see Figure 23.1). As you can see, this looks nothing like the Windows of old. It has more in common, in fact, with the tile-based UI introduced on the Windows Phone platform. (See Chapter 24, “Creating Windows Phone Applications,” for our coverage of Windows Phone development.) We see that applications are now represented as tiles. The tiles themselves are not simple, static icons; they are alive and animated, providing up-to-date information surfaced from the prospective application. Thus, at a glance, we have information ...