About tiles?

[mayblast]

I've been wonderin, why do all the tile editor apps' decorative tiles link to something? Usually it launches the tile editor, in some app it shows a popup saying this tile does nothing. That is highly annoying when you press it accidentally, double so when someone else does it.

Is there a single app that creates a dummy tile with no links?

Also, the current size for the tiles on my 735 (3 medium ones, one wide and one medium, or ****ton of small ones) makes the screen look rather ugly with no tranquillity in it.

I'd love to create a full white theme with black text on lots of folders but that is impossible: The text stays white no matter what, and the tiny tiles don't have text in them. All the tile editors I know of are not worth it because MS restricted the visuals of the start screen so much. Am I missing an app here?

I could turn this into a rant and post wishes to the MS site (does anybody have address to the suggestions/voting site?) but I know from heart that MS will never allow more customization than what a single egoistic AD with illusions of grandeur has decided is best for us all.

Knowing that we get an update in some ten months time (and knowing how restricted and limited and buggy it will be for the first six months), I'm really looking to find phone with WP idea but without the legendary MS/Apple "this must fit you or you're holding it wrong"-attitude. Sadly there are none. I can only hope MS doesn't make the start screen any more silly than what it already is.

 

[mayblast]

Allow me to rephrase myself: The current tile thingy is a complete miss and the next promised update is the W10 with all its bugs and limitations. Tsk tsk MS, they simply refuse to provide a finished product - it's always half-baked till the next big update launches and it too will be crippled till the next big update etc. etc. ad infinitum.

I wish a better company could've come up with this OS :/

 

[SSgt Bruskowiz]

Isn't it the same with all. Ios and droid incl. Thats called development, its always under construction.

For the " thingy" you can use dummytiles or wiztiles to polish your homescreen.

 

[Harrie-S]

Did you check Perfect Start ?

 

[SSgt Bruskowiz]

I could turn this into a rant and post wishes to the MS site (does anybody have address to the suggestions/voting site?) but I know from heart that MS will never allow more customization than what a single egoistic AD with illusions of grandeur has decided is best for us all.

I almost thought you were referring to Apple
But with 14 posts on your name i assume your a new WP user so i forgive your ignorance.
An other assumtion is that you had a few Android experiences, the big "evil" Google o.s who sells out your privacy for profit.
How much customisations can you as a user realy do on that o.s?
You can place a few dead pictograms on your homescreen, ow jolly.
Ofcourse you have widgets, wow nice indeed but i like a longer batterylife over some blingbling ( and without constand data the most are complete useless ).
And for the rest, ah you can use a launcher,
launchers are developed because people arent content how the originall os look's, works and feels.
When you are going deeper in the WP ecosystem you find out that you do can change things.
But thats needs realy more work than on a Android.

I have a belly full of people who comming from Droid or what ever, whining that WP should look more like there formar OS.
If they arent content than no ones stopping them to turn back.

The most WP users are content and are a complete other publick then droidusers.
Yes a nice homescreen looks cool, but it should also be trustworthy, swift and secure.
A smartphone is a lot more than only bling bling, it contains a lot of personal data and should be secure as well.
That's a garanty i dont have on Android, sorry but i have "picked" to many locks on Droid devices that i dont trust my stuf on that anymore.
Ha they even have a app for that to unlock or bypass a lockscreen on Androiddevices how silly is that.

Btw i am not ranting on Android, i just stating the facts.
Its a nice o.s and ecosystem, but it comes with a price.

 

[gpobernardo]

Every company has their own "user experience" to provide - it's part of their identity. Apple products have their own user experience, and so does Google Android. The same goes with Microsoft's Windows Phone. It's quite ironic to look for the user experience of another company in another company, e.g. Google's UX in Microsoft. If you're happy with Android, by all means stay there. If you find the Windows Phone experience delightful, then welcome to the club. But don't go around barking up at everyone when you don't like what you get yourself into.

 

[mayblast]

I'm sorry I didn't realize I would come out as a newbie or a fan boy of other club. In fact my company worked pretty tightly with MS and Nokia when the first 900-series were in beta phase. I've watched WP from the very beginning and before that used HTC Diamond with Windows Mobile.

I did not mean about the characteristics of this particular OS, I meant the very fierce limitations of it. The jack of customization bothers me. Take the size of the tiles for example. In fact, take any part of tiles and you're bound to notice you have very limited power over the presets. Of the above mentioned apps, thanks for tips, apparently only wiztiles have tiles that do nothing. Dummytiles I did not find from the store.

Had users (developers) access to true customization we would still have tiles, but we would have tiles that are restricted by imagination instead of MS telling us what we should like.
-"Go take a pee"
-"But mom I don't need to pee"
-"Yes you do."

 

[SSgt Bruskowiz]

The Ios and the Droid startscreens are also devided in a grid. These icons are also square but the user dont see that.
Those iconsizes are also preset by the os builder with no choise at all.
We can choose between a small and a large tile and sometimes even a rectangular one.
The app icon shape itself is depending on the imagination of the developer who designed the app.
There are ways to " defacing" them.
But thats stil limited to the phones who are carrying a sd card.
And when you are looking at xda you find out that there are quite a few possibilities to get your hands in.
Only the lumias has some difficulties but the Samsung Activ and some particular htc device are already cracked

 

[gpobernardo]

I'm sorry I didn't realize I would come out as a newbie or a fan boy of other club. In fact my company worked pretty tightly with MS and Nokia when the first 900-series were in beta phase. I've watched WP from the very beginning and before that used HTC Diamond with Windows Mobile.

I did not mean about the characteristics of this particular OS, I meant the very fierce limitations of it. The jack of customization bothers me. Take the size of the tiles for example. In fact, take any part of tiles and you're bound to notice you have very limited power over the presets. Of the above mentioned apps, thanks for tips, apparently only wiztiles have tiles that do nothing. Dummytiles I did not find from the store.

Had users (developers) access to true customization we would still have tiles, but we would have tiles that are restricted by imagination instead of MS telling us what we should like.
-"Go take a pee"
-"But mom I don't need to pee"
-"Yes you do."

Windows 10 is coming soon. Hopefully the "restrictedness" that the current design has would have an interesting twist in the new "re-designed" version of the OS.

 

[manicottiK]

Had users (developers) access to true customization we would still have tiles, but we would have tiles that are restricted by imagination instead of MS telling us what we should like.

Developers can design any tile they want with whatever artwork, text, colors, etc. within the three grid sizes provided. That's two more sizes than the default launchers for Android and iOS.

The default tile templates follow the design guidelines (white text of a specific size for the title), but nothing stops developers from doing something different with their tiles. (An older version of our university portal used to send an image with a translucent accent-colored background to go behind the white text -- anything is possible, within the three sizes provided.)

 

[SSgt Bruskowiz]

The only thing i agree about the startscreen is the wallpaper. Its not really a wallpaper, empty spaces leaves a ugly black ( or white )space.
To close that up you need more tiles rather you use them or not.
I close that gap with dummy tiles.
I believe it looks better when the wallpapers replace the black background.
Or use a wallpaper to replace the black and a separate wallpaper for the tiles.
Or let users choose for a color instead of black (or white).

I use two small transparent dummy tiles and two larger ones with a picture of my wife.
But in fact its just a waste of space.

But overall i am real content with wat you can do ( especial when you look at wp 8.0 ).

 

[mayblast]

manicottiK: I agree with you, there can be a lot of creativity involved when designing tiles. I was a bit unclear but I meant customizing from end user's point, editing the whole tileset/startscreen. By writing ' developers' I meant people contributing with a apps that edit startscreens.

I dis the idea that they simply removed/altered the size of tiles for newer phone models (part of denim or something?) and apparently there is no way to change them back to what they were in my older phone. It's almost like Sony killing playstation's features in updates all over again. When someone asks to see my phone, their usually jaws drop because there's so much going on in the screen. It looks impressive I give you that but I think I would go with folder tiles instead. Etc.
There should be more room for customization, even before wp10.

Is this dummytiles the same as Tilesparency because that's the only one I could find? Pressing its dummy tiles opens the app which is annoying and also defies the meaning of dummy.

 

[SSgt Bruskowiz]

manicottiK:
Is this dummytiles the same as Tilesparency because that's the only one I could find? Pressing its dummy tiles opens the app which is annoying and also defies the meaning of dummy.

The app i use is called "Empty Tiles".
It just places a transparant tile on the homescreen.
When you tap on it, it opends and gives you the possibility to pin a new one.
I rather saw a real dead tile, but okay.

But wat did you mean with altering the size????
"I dis the idea that they simply removed/altered the size of tiles for newer phone models (part of denim or something?)"
The tiles are stil the same size.
But i think you mean the two/three columns.
For the large screens its three columns and for the smaller its preset for two columns.
I believe you can find that under settings/screens

But this is easyer ;-)
http://winsupersite.com/windows-phone/windows-phone-81-tip-show-more-tiles

Is that what you meant?

 

[mayblast]

Hi,
at least in 735 there's no option for "show more tiles", it's locked on by default and one can not change it. I think all the 5" models are like that (?). The small tiles are nice but don't quite do it for me as the the small folders don't show the folder name.

I ponder if the the dummy tiles pointing to an app is because of developer's choice, or does the OS not allow true dummy tiles that do absolutely nothing.

 

[SSgt Bruskowiz]

Basically....In the wp environment apps aren't allowed to start other apps. Apps who are triggered by such a customization app have one or the other way have given some certain permissions.

 

[mayblast]

So it's extra hassle for the developer to make an action for a dummy tile? Those apps would appear way better if they didn't launch themselves when pressing a dummy tile.

 

[manicottiK]

So it's extra hassle for the developer to make an action for a dummy tile? Those apps would appear way better if they didn't launch themselves when pressing a dummy tile.

When a user taps a tile, Windows Phone launches the app that created the tile. Since the app can tell which of its tiles was tapped, the app can do different things for each, including launching some settings pages or quitting.

It sounds like you're suggesting that the dummy tile app quit rather than doing something else. That's possible, but the Start screen would still show the animation for an app launching and then closing. That wouldn't give a very good user experience.