Bring back live tiles on Windows 11 #427
Replies: 87 comments 13 replies
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I would like to see Live Tiles remain with Windows 10X. With the addition of iOS Widgets to Apple's devices - that should be seen as a validation of the original concept. Live Tiles should be invested in and further developed to make them more useful and added functionality and customisation. Of course this brings to mind where they should exist in the UI. I use a full screened Start Menu on my Surface Go and on my Desktop PC. Most of the Live tiles are just icons, but some of them are Live and useful. Finding a way for the Icons like with Windows 10X and the Live Tiles can co-exist should be investigated. Then there are those that have wanted the Live Tiles to not be in the Start Menu / Launcher area, but pinned to the desktop. Why can't they exist in both? iOS uses icons that are contained in rounded square shapes, and extend that shape to encompass their widgets. Now the 20H2 Start Menu does something similar, with Acrylic/Translucent tiles, where as Windows 10X has free floating icons of various shapes. Maybe the two styles could co exist, with some kind of invisible grid, and rounded corners on the Live Tiles / Widgets you choose to Pin to the Desktop or Start/Launcher UIs will look more like cards, and so wont feel out of place on an invisible grid? |
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@mdtauk Something like this would be really great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGMEXtPRT_I |
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Bringing up Windows 8 era concepts wont be winning people around. Android has had interactive widgets for a long time, but they are usually ugly and glitchy. Apple's are quite similar to Microsoft's more restrictive Live Tiles, but has a bit more functionality compared to them. Better to use more recent examples if you hope to persuade the teams of the familiarity and cross-platform appeal for keeping and refreshing them. |
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@mdtauk The static icons on 10x are just all apps list with no pin so they can co-exist. |
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@mdtauk Is this familiar? https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/79658.image2.jpg |
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I'm a big fan and user of tiles, I've used them since they became available in Windows 8, and continue to use them in my start screen in Windows 10, I have my current Start set up like a control center that brings me any relevant information I need at a glance, and I always thought the functionality of tiles could be improved by making them more like widgets as well! Seeing how Apple took a similar approach with their widgets, I think it would be great if Tiles are ever implemented in 10X that they could have additional widget like functionality. Tiles not being in 10X has also been one of the things that has repulsed me from even considering 10X, I don't like the start interface 10X has at all, it feels like a dumbed down generic android home screen, and it doesn't bring the useful functionality tiles have in Windows 10, I couldn't have the same tile sections I have on my Sufrace where I have a whole section dedicated to being a news feed, some would argue you could get the same via notification but thats not a solution, that would just fill up my notification center with a bunch of articles and not give me a quick at a glance look at topics I pinned in start. The lack of familiarity in 10X was also another big worry of mine, the start menu with tiles is more familiar and customizable than a grid of static icons. |
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To old macOS "widgets" sure... But not to the new iOS ones.
And here are the Windows 10X Icon Launcher, and the current Icon Tiles
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Windows 10X has an empty desktop with no files so these could be put in there and the launcher menu could be the all apps screen. |
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Here's a concept by me on how it can look: |
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I think that Microsoft should let non-packed Win32 Apps use Live Tiles. By use, I mean change the background color, size, etc. Because Tiles are limited for most people who use Win32. |
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@dragonDScript Win32 apps can use live tiles as long as they are packaged like regular UWP apps. I think all apps must become packaged one day to prevent slowing down and living junk behind and use MSIX as the installer. However, for other apps, I have already proposed that in #172. |
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There may be some within Microsoft who think the name "Live Tiles" is a negative, so if needs be, they could be re-branded App Cards, which can live in the Start Menu, or on the Desktop. |
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@mdtauk Not needed. Live tiles are not negative. Windows legacy users who hate change are to blame. Also, the name "live tiles" is not really used in the Windows UI and is only for a reference. Without change, there's no innovation. These users never understand this and this is the reason why Microsoft gave use the Start menu which I like but it also removed a lot of useful features and customization options. Even iOS has know caught up with something Microsoft did really well 8 years ago. But Microsoft is going back to how iOS was 8 years ago. If Microsoft closes this and ignores this, it's a shame for Windows 10x since an 8 year OS can do some much more. |
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What I meant is that unpacked win32 apps should be able to get custom live tiles. Because, as an example, Godot can't be installed per user or system. It is a portable .exe |
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This looks like a good idea. Live Tiles remembers to Windows 8 which wasn't very popular at all (even if I like it) |
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@mdtauk I think full screen is much better since you can see them all without that much scrolling. |
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Sure, but if you only pin a few widgets, it doesn't have to be Full Screen. Also you may want to group a few Live Tiles in different groups, so they can each have a small flyout. Another thing with 10X at the moment. You can not group App Icons into folders, and there is not way to arrange the Icons on a grid with spaces between them. With my Start Screen I group design apps, office apps, games, and daily glance apps together. A flat grid of App Icons doesn't allow this, and that I think is a regression too. |
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@mdtauk The flyout or screen which shows the widgets can be resizable like the current desktop Start screen. Yes, flyout can be down for grouping but not in the taskbar, instead of the new tiles screen or flyout. |
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The easiest thing to do is have the current 10x Launcher customizable. Think of the various modes in File Manager: Now implement them in the Start Menu: |
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I made a concept of interactive live tiles on the desktop. Instead of scrolling for overflow, I decided to make it paged similar to how Android handles the page. Since it's hard to swipe with a mouse, I have also included buttons for them. Existing desktop icons are inside a desktop tile as a list.
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This kinda reminds me of TabWorks.
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Reminds me of Live tiles on Windows Phones |
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This is an excellent discussion, how do folks feel about moving this discussion to GitHub Discussions in the Ideas section? I wanted to ask before moving this, but @JaiganeshKumaran if you feel good with moving this to GitHub Discussions, let me know and I can migrate it (and all the comments and everything will move over there and be retained!). |
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@andrewleader Ok go ahead |
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Moving this discussion to GitHub Discussions into our Ideas section! |
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There have been some rumours that live tiles will be removed from Windows. I'll be really disappointed if you did that. News and Interests could have been a live tile replacement however it has a lot of issues like poor performance, no third-party widget support and is inconsistent with the rest of the system (eg: uses custom share flyout instead of the built-in one). |
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I think I can be ok with Static App Tiles being replaced with icons, as long as Live Tiles remain, or are replaced with more interactive widgets that do the same thing and more. Having these look good on the Start Menu / Start Screen will be very important. Please take heed from Apple's widget approach, and the lessons learned by Android 12 in being more prescriptive in how these should look, and fit into system theming.
I think if there was some kind of Xaml/HTML presenter component, that could run safely in its own system controlled object, that could present the widget UI, use Theme Resources, or fetch content periodically from the web. It would be a powerful new feature for Windows. Rather than an image or XML payload. And these widgets/tiles must remain in a UI that can appear above all other UI for glancing, so start menu or taskbar flyout, but could also be pinned to the desktop perhaps. |
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Instead of creating a completely new widget system that would be incompatible with existing app tiles so those won't work anymore, it would be better if there was a new tag in the XML payload to embed HTML content so it can be interactive while existing static tiles will still work as they always did. |
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Now live tiles are gone. Please revert your decision. |
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I think that the current UI is better. In the real life no one used tiles. |
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Interessting. Where did you get your data from? |
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Personal experiences from EVERYONE Who used Windows
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I have over 40 tiles on my Start screen and 28 of them are live and some have been useful but there are others who aren't taking advantage of the feature. The current model is limited which is an issue but some can't use it eg: PWAs. |
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Yes, most apps (win32) couldn't profit from it and that's what failed. The concept itself, as we seen in ¡Phone is very good. |
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It is true that desktop apps originally couldn't take advantage of the feature however that has mostly been fixed. You can either package your app with MSIX and use live tiles with identity or use a sparse package. |
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I know leaks shouldn't be talked about etc, but the Windows 11 builds so far show a 10X like launcher. I have many issues with the design of this UI, but focusing on the Live Tiles aspect. I think Static App tiles are probably a thing of the past now, and as such Live Tiles need not sit alongside general app launching icons. But now there is the "Microsoft Dashboard" / Windows Widgets UI, that currently only supports the News and Interests webview stuff, but could be a good place for Live Tiles to be. They need not remain as Live Tiles, but they could become third party Widgets.
At the moment Windows Widgets are webview content, so lets build on that, and then integrate a similar concept to the GameBar Widgets. Web WidgetThe app or user can provide a URL with an ID for the block that then becomes the widget. This can be responsive so it fills the size chosen for the web widget. Xaml WidgetUsing the same system as the Game Bar widgets, an installed app can provide a XAML file which can support breakpoints to fit the size of the widget, or can provide individual Xaml files for each size. Then using a background task it can be updated and respond to controls and input within the widget Payload WidgetThis could work with Adaptive Cards, or backwards compatible with the XML payloads, currently used for Secondary and Live Tiles. When a user upgrades to Windows 11, their existing Live Tiles, pinned to start, could be automatically placed in the Widgets panel. All of this works with what we have seen, but there is still an issue with Tablets and touch only devices. Android, iPad, and iPhone mix their tiles and app icons together on their home screens. I suspect that Windows is ditching a Tablet Mode UI for some reason, so perhaps there could be an alternate launcher/start menu design the user could switch to.
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I suggest making it clear your mockups are such, to avoid creating confusion. |
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Done |
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Windows 11 has unfortunately removed live tiles and has replaced them with static icons for launching apps in Start and a separate Widgets menu (evolved from News and Interests). Most app tiles weren't really live the new layout makes sense however many apps use secondary tiles solely for live content or customized content and although a lot of them do the right thing when clicked, many of them have lost their real purpose. Few examples:
At least consider migrating these secondary tiles to Widgets and move away them from Start. Another issue with the new Start menu is that it's very hard to arrange and find the pinned apps. Half of the flyout is covered with the recommended section which uses the same space even when there's no recommended item there. It's useful however with the old layout you can have multiple named groups so can find everything related to a single topic at one place however here it's just a simple grid of icons. Old Start also had folders which I didn't use much back then but at least the new Start menu could have folders for pinned apps so you can group by category if you want instead of having actual categories as well like the old Start menu. |
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@JaiganeshKumaran Please break up this wall of text into paragraphs. It's unreadable. |
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Most apps however don't use msix nowadays.
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Even then, they can at least use a sparse package to get live tiles without packaging the entire app with MSIX. |
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A lot of effort to get a mini feature working. Just making it work with win32 would have made them popular. See ¡OS for example! The problem is not with tiles itself, but MS's implementation. |
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Proposal: Bring back live tiles on Windows 11
Live tiles are the best thing ever invented. Ever since they were introduced in 2012 on Windows desktop, apps were created to use Live tiles. Although the amount is not that huge, many people including me rely heavily on live tiles. On mobile devices like the Surface Neo, it makes more sense to have live tiles and innovate.
Summary
Microsoft has decided to remove live tiles and replace it with static dumb old school icons to be consistent with other platforms. This is not acceptable and bad for the future of Windows. It doesn't need to be on the start screen but could also be on the desktop.
Rationale
Scope
Important Notes
Open Questions
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