Paul Thurrott - Windows 8 Secrets

Apps must be rated and conform to rules set forth by the ESRB or equivalent rating system used in your locale.

• Content policies:Windows Store enforces strict content policies that can vary from region to region. No apps with a rating over ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) Mature (or equivalent) are allowed, which excludes adults-only content (that which features prolonged scenes of intense violence or graphic sexual content).

• One tile:If you’ve ever installed an old-school Windows application like Office or Visual Studio on Windows 8, you know how awful it is to have numerous application tiles spewed onto your Start screen at the end. This won’t happen with Metro-style apps: Developers are limited to adding just a single app tile to the Start screen.

• Metro-style apps only:Apps sold via Windows Store must be real Windows 8 apps—that is, Metro-style apps and not traditional Windows applications. That said, Microsoft is allowing developers to list their desktop applications in Windows Store, though directing users who wish to learn more, download the application, or purchase it, to do so from the developer’s website.

• No websites allowed:An app must be a native Windows 8 app and not just a shell for a website. Windows 8 provides a facility for pinning favorite websites to the Start screen already.

• Respect privacy:If an app needs to publish your personal information to a third-party service, it must provide an opt-in mechanism so that you, the user, can explicitly OK this behavior before it happens. And the description provided must accurately explain how the information will be used or share and provide a way through which you can later rescind your permission. Apps that collect personal information must provide a privacy policy that explains how the developer is safeguarding your information.

• Secure:Apps cannot compromise the security or integrity of Windows. Put simply, they can’t be malware or link to malware.

• Reliable:It sounds fairly obvious, but apps must be reliable and not stop working suddenly, end unexpectedly, or contain what Microsoft calls “programming errors.” Ignore the irony of that statement for a moment and consider why this is truly important: When you download an application from the web, there’s no quality guarantee at all, and if the application stops working or never works properly, you have no real mediation other than complaining to the developer. In Windows Store, there are community-based means of complaint—poor reviews and ratings in the store—and Microsoft, as the curator of the store, to complain to as well.

• Performance:Microsoft calls Metro-style apps fast and fluid, and it means that. Put in real-world terms, apps must start up in 5 seconds or less and resume in 2 seconds or less. Not impressed? Those scores must be obtained on a low-end, Atom-based PC. Chances are the Windows 8 device or PC you’re using is much faster.

• Windows 8 features:Apps must support key Windows 8 features, including Snap, in which the app can share the screen with another snapped app. Apps must respect and utilize the system-level methods for app closing and not provide their own buttons or other mechanisms for closing. If an app uses notifications, it must support the system settings for these notifications so that the user can externally configure whether they work.

• Network-friendly:Thanks to a new emphasis on cellular connectivity in Windows devices and PCs—or what Microsoft calls metered Internet connections—apps must prevent users from unintentionally transferring large amounts of data over such networks. Typical examples include apps that provide streaming video or audio, both of which have specific transfer limits.

• Multiple markets and languages:Apps can be sold in multiple markets and in multiple languages if desired, though they must only support one of each.

While Windows Store can be accessed like any other Metro-style app, the store is also central to other Metro experiences, so you’ll find a few more entry points in Windows 8 as well. Here are some of the ways in which you can launch Windows Store:

• Start screen tile:The Windows Store tile, shown in Figure 6-1, is available by default on the Windows 8 Start screen. Just tap the tile to launch the app.

Figure 6-1:The Windows Store tile is the obvious entry point to this important app.

• All apps:If Windows Store isn’t present on the Start screen for some reason, just enable the All Apps view (Right-click a blank area of the screen, tap Winkey + Z, or on a touch screen device, swipe up from the bottom of the screen). It will appear in this view as Store .

• App Search:You can also use Windows Search to search for Windows Store. Just tap Winkey + Q and type store.

• From other apps:Microsoft and third-party apps can provide front ends to Windows Store. The obvious example that’s included with Windows 8 is Xbox Games, which provides access to, among other things, Metro-style games for Windows 8.

Of all the Windows 8 user experiences, Windows Store is perhaps the simplest and most obvious of all. Technology fans tend to toss around words like intuitive far more than is accurate, but in this case, it’s close: You’d have a hard time getting lost in, or confused by, Windows Store. Shown in Figure 6-2, Windows Store is a model for the Metro-style fierce reduction of user interface that Microsoft seems very proud of these days.

Figure 6-2:Awash in white space, it’s Windows Store.

Thanks to the dynamic nature of its new apps platform, the Metro-style apps that Microsoft includes with Windows 8/RT will change over time, so it’s highly likely that this app will appear somewhat differently over time and will include additional features. This is normal, and as a general statement, it’s probably fair to say that the version of Windows Store you use will provide a superset of the functionality we describe in this chapter.

As a true Metro-style experience, Windows Store offers horizontal rather than vertical navigation. That is, you scroll from left to right through the various app category sections that make up the home screen of this app, and not up and down as you would in a document-based application like Microsoft Word.

This navigation occurs logically enough as well: Users with touch-based devices will find that horizontal swipes work exactly as expected. Those with a mouse (or trackpad) can access the bottom-mounted scroll bar that appears when that pointing device is present, as shown in Figure 6-3, or use the mouse’s scroll wheel.

Figure 6-3:Mouse users can navigate Windows Store with a scroll bar.

And if you’re keyboard-bound, Page Up and Page Down will scroll the UI from category to category. Home and End will navigate directly to the front and rear of the app’s home screen, respectively.