Windows 8 Metro Diary: Day 3

The following few posts will chronicle my experience with the newly released Microsoft Windows 8 Developer's Preview, made available as a free download from Microsoft themselves.

Monday September 26th - Friday September 30th 2011

Day 3 is a little different, in fact its a week, since I had less time to play around with it, and less things to talk about, I'll bundle the week together.

After several days of digging around, I found a way to get the developer tools for Metro style apps for the other downloads, So I have in fact started to develop one application. However since Microsoft considers this a breach of EULA I cannot disclose the technique here. Suffice it to say, its simple and straight forward. Which makes it even the more puzzling that Microsoft chose not to include this in all the downloads.

However that does not end the issues. After a few days of development Visual Studio 11 crashed on me and has never come back up. It now crashes every time I try to load it. However there is another version that gets installed which is labeled the Experimental Instance which continues to work correctly. So I'm using that.

I've also had an issue with my DVD-Drive, an LG DVD-RAM drive. Its picked up flawlessly by both my BIOS, and Windows XP in the same machine, but Windows 8 just refuses to see it. I guess I could chalk it up to a glitch in this pre-release version and expect it to be fixed b y the time the actual full release hits shelves. Though its still a bit of a mystery as to why it won't see it. More so considering that it was that drive that was used to install Windows 8 from the burnt DVD.

In any case moving on to my Metro style application, I have to say development is very natural if you are familiar with the languages involved. I chose the HTML 5 and Javascript approach, but there is of course the C++, C# or even Visual Basic alternatives if required. All 4 boil down to a full screen website style interface with the engine behind the app being any of the mentioned languages. Its an interesting concept, that actually works surprisingly well for consumer applications such as image management, social site interactions, games, and other none productive apps. However I don't see office based apps as Word, Excel, financial applications, etc.. making the leap to Metro Style.

I do expect however that we'll see Metro based alternatives, with probably less functionality, but nicer interfaces. A Metro style text editor is inevitable as will be a basic Image editor. Standard every day tools like a basic email client and instant messenger are also, no doubt, in the horizon.

For users with more involved requirements the now called Desktop mode is basically an update to the Desktop of any Windows version prior to this, and in which users will be able to run non metro style apps as they would in older Windows versions. This is where most corporate environments, and more technically oriented users will spend most of their Windows using time.

In the end Metro is clearly aimed at final, home or casual users; by offering a nice interface to their most often used apps, without needing to get into the actual system OS. It turns a PC into a tablet which is what most casual users would want for their regular tasks.

As far as my metro App goes, I developed a pretty basic unit converter. From Metric to English units, and so forth. Its not done yet, but here's a screen shot to tide you over until the next post.

Windows 8 Metro Diary: Day Two

The following few posts will chronicle my experience with the newly released Microsoft Windows 8 Developer's Preview, made available as a free download from Microsoft themselves.

Sunday September 25th 2011

Sunday Morning rolls along and I'm thinking great time to see what this puppy can do. I was all set to start delving into the world of Metro Apps when I realized the 32bit version of the Windows Preview I downloaded does not contain the adequate development packages. So off to Microsoft's site to download the Visual Studio 11 Preview package. Well The download is a Smart Installer, though there is a 3 part download you can opt for as well. The complete setup is close to 2GB. So again Another hour or so waiting for it to download.

Once completed it begins to install, it took about another 30 to 40 minutes to finish configuring everything. It was finally done, I could start checking this out, and start getting up to speed in how the Metro Apps work. So Move out to the Start Screen with all the Metro tiles and *whoah!!* 20 Tiles where added to the screen. I realized then and there that the screen simply takes anything and everything from our old trusty Start Menu location and plops it as 150 by 150 pixel tiles.

Anyway, so I run Visual Studio, and all is o.k. It looks interesting. Lets try creating a new project, something simple, a Hello World tile as is customary to do. So I add a single div to the project, (this is a HTML 5 and Javascript Metro App project), configure a few things and try to run and execute to see what it looks like. Well a couple seconds go by, and bam, 2 errors crop up. makepri.exe cannot be found, and the Modern SDK is not there. Well after a lot of digging it turns up, that Microsoft in all its unparalleled wisdom decided to issue only one of the Developer Preview downloads with all the files required to develop Metro Style apps.

The 64bit 4.8GB full download.

Now, I know what you are thinking, how is that a problem, just download that. Well I can't, and many other people can't either. Why You ask? Well I don't have a 64bt computer, so I can't run that. Many people don't have dual layer DVD's to burn, or their drives can't actually burn them. So we choose the alternative: Download the 32bit Windows OS preview, and then install the Visual Studio Preview separately.

However this method leaves you without the essential Metro App development files which is the entire purpose of these previews. I don't understand the logic behind only providing the tools in one of the packages? What's to gain here? I really don't understand. Its like having rollercoaster with a sign that says come all and try it, but once you are inside you can only get the full ride if you have a $20,000 Rolex watch and have been lugging around a very large duffle bag. Everybody else gets just the shortened route.

So that's It for day 2, hopefully day 3 will bring some much needed solutions..

Any comments or questions, feel free to post below.

Windows 8 Metro Diary: Day One

The following few posts will recap my experience with the newly released Microsoft Windows 8 Developer's Preview, made available as a free download from Microsoft themselves.

Saturday September 24th 2011

We start off with a hefty 2.8 GB download, that's 2.8 Gigabytes of data, as in your standard USB pen drive capacity these days. It took a little less than 2 hours to complete.
After that we need to build the customary Installation media from the download. A simple matter as its an ISO image, a CD/DVD image file which contains all the information needed to burn an installation disc using any number of tools available. I used ISOburner a free safe tool for just such tasks. Once the DVD is done its on to installation. I decided to do this as an actual install rather than a virtual one just So I could get the full experience. So I went into my Hard drive drawer and picked an empty one I knew was operational. 80GB of space should suffice I thought, I don't think I'll be installing many things onto this, and I it will be basically for testing purposes.
So the Install goes similarly to Windows 7 installation, it lets you pick your destination drive, and ipartition it as you see fit. The installation automatically creates a 300MB system reserved partition regardless of your partitioning choices. It deducts the space from your main OS partition. Once complete it proceeds to copy and install files. It took quite a while to install, about 30 minutes in my not so powerful test PC.

When all is said and done, you are treated to the new Metro Start Screen. Instead of your regular start menu, you get a full screen of what Microsoft now calls tiles. Squares or rectangles that serve as shortcuts for applications and other functions. Several pre-installed apps and games grace the screen, most notably Socialite the Facebook app, and of course IE10 Metro version. (more on this later)
My first task of course was setting up the Internet connection, as Windows did not automatically detect/install my wireless card. Of course you can't really tell what is going on as the interface is aimed at final users, so off the bat we need to dig into the new layout to find the familiar Device Manager. (I wonder If I can add a Device Manager Tile for easy access). Installation of the wireless card was as painless as it has been in previous versions of Windows.
With that done we get a look at the new Wireless network list; a green sidebar, as Microsoft calls it. It offers a very nice, large and crisp font for the network names and the standard bar display for the signal strength. A nice face-lift to what we had been seeing since Vista.

The next test drive was of course IE10. Now here's were things get interesting, Microsoft has divided the applications into 2 categories: Desktop applications and Metro Style applications. Desktop Applications are your run of the mill apps you've been using in other versions of Windows, they open in standard windows, and can be maximized, dragged around, closed etc... The Metro Style App is the new kind of app that takes advantage of the new Metro Engine and runs full screen, cannot be dragged or moved, or even closed in the regular sense of the word. Its basically a full screen dynamic Web application that runs outside a browser and covers the screen. It can be swiped out of the way, or hidden. When hidden or swiped out of the way the app suspends rather than outright closing.
For me this is a slight drawback, as It means you quickly have many many things running in the background you may not want or need, and with no real dedicated closing mechanism, your are left with only the TaskManager route of closing these applications.
Technically speaking Windows memory manager should close apps you haven't used when running low on memory, however I've never been keen on letting Windows handle the memory usage by itself, I like to be able to close things when I'm done.
Going back to IE10, it does come in 2 flavors Desktop, and Metro. In Desktop mode is very similar to other versions of IE, (8 & 9) so nothing much to comment on there. While in Metro Mode its as explained a full screen app, with the address bar now positioned in a smokey dark gray translucent hideaway bar at the bottom of the screen. No other visible controls are present. When navigating the website the bar disappears for the full screen experience. To bring it back you must right click the screen. This brings up the address/tool bar and the tab/page bar at the top. The Address/tool bar offers your regular forward, back and refresh buttons, along with a search button and a Pin to start button. So you can add your favorite sites to the Metro Start Screen.
The Tab/Page bar at the top shows thumbnails of your currently opened tabs, as well as the option to close them or open new ones. Clicking back in the website makes the bars go away and puts you back into browsing mode.
At the end of day I can see the interface is very much designed for touch based devices; however the mouse and keyboard experience is pleasant enough to be quite usable and satisfying. However I can see corporate environments turning it off, in favor the desktop mode.
Day 2 will see me install a few more applications, and wrangle with a few more pieces of hardware So stay tuned for Day 2 of the Windows 8 Metro Diary. .
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