Metro Apps in Windows 8

This is the first article in a series dedicated to the new Windows 8 Metro Applications. In it we will analyze some of its most important innovations, such as the architecture on which its development is based and the languages ​​and…

This is the first article in a series dedicated to the new Windows 8 Metro Applications. In it we will analyze some of its most important innovations, such as the architecture on which its development is based and the languages ​​and standards.

In September 2011, Microsoft showed the world, for the first time, the latest version of its popular operating system: Windows 8. This first version, known as Windows Developer Preview, allowed developers to take a first look at what is being called to be the most revolutionary operating system of all that the company has launched since the days of Windows 95.

Beyond its aesthetic changes, its strong touch orientation or the promise of launching versions compatible with ARM processors for the first time, there was a novelty that stood out above all for anyone who has ever made a living making web pages: in Windows 8 applications can be created using the languages ​​of the web, that is, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.

This is the first of a series of articles that will analyze step by step what a Metro application is, what features it has, how we can program it and how we can make it available to users through the new Windows Store that will be integrated by default in Windows 8.

Architecture in Windows 8

Before we go into more detail about one of these apps and how we can program them, let’s start with an overview of the new Windows 8 architecture and how Metro Apps fit into it.

During the Build the image in Figure 1 became the most popular in all sessions. This image describes the different modules that the Windows 8 architecture presents. The first division is between “Metro style Apps” and “Desktop Apps”.

Desktop Apps or Desktop Applications refer to applications that have always existed in Windows. As we can see, the possibility of programming them with languages ​​such as C#, VB, C or C++ is offered against APIs such as .NET, Silverlight or the old Win32. There is also a space for creating web applications that run within Internet Explorer.

But the revolution is not in these applications, which simply follow the line set by previous versions of the operating system. The change is in the “Metro style Apps” or simply Metro Applications. The term Metro refers to the fact that all of them must follow the new Microsoft design standard known as Metro and which has been successfully applied to products such as Windows Phone, the Xbox interface or hundreds of Microsoft sites.

These new Metro Applications, as the graphic shows us, will be able to design their graphic interface with XAML or HTML/CSS, and implement their functionality with C/C++, C#/VB or JavaScript. The language used does not matter, since all of them will be a wrapper around a single API that offers all the services of the operating system. This API has been called WinRT and will offer advanced communication and data capabilities, graphics, multimedia, devices, printing, etc.

Standards-based

The programming of the new Metro Applications with HTML/CSS/Javascript will not simply take these languages, they will be based on the standards and good practices that are already an intrinsic part of the Web, or are under development at the W3C with Looking forward to a future addition.

This decision not only facilitates the reuse of web developers’ knowledge, but also opens the door to being able to use hybrid development schemes, with applications that start in an exclusively web environment with a reduced set of functionalities and that, once tested , make it easy to download a native Metro app on Windows 8 with a much more powerful user service offering.

This scenario has already been provided by Microsoft. In the Metro version of Internet Explorer 10 there will be a button specifically designed so that, once the browser has detected that there is an application in the Windows Store associated with the web page, it allows the user to download it with a single click.

In the new Metro Applications we will be able to use an implementation of HTML5 even greater than that already offered by Internet Explorer 9. There will be no shortage of well-known elements such as tags and , the new semantic tags, the Geolocation API or many of the new HTML5 Forms .

There will also be extensive support for CSS3 modules, especially powerful in the section on new layouts that will allow us, with a single CSS style sheet, to adapt applications to devices with sizes as different as those that a tablet or a computer can present. desktop. Thanks to CSS3, Metro Applications can be 100% adaptable.

There will also be no shortage of other technologies such as SVG or multiple JavaScript APIs: XMLHttpRequest, JSON, FileAPI, IndexedDB, WebSockets, WebWorkers, etc.

Finally, it is important to highlight one aspect of these new applications: even when their languages ​​originate from the Web, these applications will not have one of the fundamental characteristics of this medium, such as navigation. That is to say, in Metro Applications, as in a classic desktop application, there will be no idea of ​​going forward or backward as in a browser. The applications may present different screens for different views that their functionality requires, but the transition between them will be the result of the user’s interaction with said application and not the consequence of clicking on a hypertext link.

conclusions

With Windows 8, Microsoft aims to launch a revolution that could change the landscape of application development forever. Giving web developers the ability to build native Windows 8 apps with the same tools, languages, standards, and best practices they’re used to is opening the door to a ton of talent. This doorway will allow you to transcend the boundaries of the web and make it easy to create a host of compelling apps that can make the difference between success and failure on Windows 8.

In exchange, Microsoft offers a powerful operating system, an application store that is more advantageous than the existing ones, and a potential market that, for Windows 7 licenses alone, exceeds 500 million installations. There is no market out there that even comes close to those numbers.

We are undoubtedly facing a great opportunity for web developers and throughout this series we will explain how to take advantage of it.

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