Are WinRT apps 'tablet apps'?

[Dashel]

Saying they're tablet only would mean they would only work with tablets, when they clearly don't. They work on the desktop, they work on my HTPC, and they're working great on my laptop, which tells me thay aren't tablet only apps.

Pretty low bar for differentiation is it not? What other traits would you ascribe to tablet focused apps beyond their basic ability to run on a tablet? By that logic, Desktop apps (Win7) are also tablet apps since they can also be run on a tablet. Such simplicity of thought adds nothing to the discussion.

What makes them 'great' on a laptop vs the presumed 'ok' of desktop again? My testing leads to the opposite conclusion, as the increased mouse travel for example is much more noticeable on a touchpad than mouse.

[phailyoor]

Metro apps do not have proper right-click context menu support, a feature that is extremely important to mouse users.

[jakem1]

There's a lot of selective misquoting of Microsoft going on in this thread. Microsoft never said that Modern apps were designed to be "touch first" suggesting that keyboard and mouse support comes second. They said that touch was a first class citizen in the Modern UI and would work as well as the keyboard and mouse. Their intention was to differentiate Windows 8 from 7 where touch was clearly a second class citizen and not an effective way to interact with applications.

[Anthonyd]

Metro apps do not have proper right-click context menu support, a feature that is extremely important to mouse users.

They do have a context menu on both mouse & touch support.

[Syanide]

I've been using Windows 8 as my main OS for the past month or so on my main, desktop PC, but the total time I've used any of the Metro apps is less than a few minutes (pretty much the time needed to remove any file associations with Metro apps). It looks horrible, it's like someone dragged a 4" phone app across a 24" screen. It's made for small screens and touch input, therefore I voted "tablet apps."

[Active.]

There's a lot of selective misquoting of Microsoft going on in this thread. Microsoft never said that Modern apps were designed to be "touch first" suggesting that keyboard and mouse support comes second. They said that touch was a first class citizen in the Modern UI and would work as well as the keyboard and mouse.

I don't know. When Microsoft claims that Metro apps are Designed for touch and then urges developers to not build separate touch and mouse interactions, the message seems pretty clear to me. Which other part am I supposed to quote? There's 2 instances of the word 'keyboard' on that page, and 4 for 'mouse', compared to 23 for 'touch'.

Interestingly, Microsoft writes that:

Mouse interactions are best suited to applications that require precision pointing and clicking

But how do you square that with a UI that is absolutely identical for touch and mouse users, therefore can't require precision pointing and clicking if it wants to remain usable for touch users?! I really don't get it.

[Calum Veteran]

Metro apps do not have proper right-click context menu support, a feature that is extremely important to mouse users.

What do you mean by "proper" right-click context menu support? From what I can tell, the support for it is just as good in the new experience.

[Active.]

On second thought - maybe one shouldn't take Microsoft's guidelines too seriously.

Their words:

Don't create a menu such as "More" or "Advanced" for unrelated, miscellaneous commands.

Their actions:

[Calum Veteran]

On second thought - maybe one shouldn't take Microsoft's guidelines too seriously.

Their words:

<image snipped from quote>

Their actions:

<image snipped from quote>

That's it, Microsoft! Lead by example. . . . :no:

[spaceelf]

I don't know. When Microsoft claims that Metro apps are Designed for touch and then urges developers to not build separate touch and mouse interactions, the message seems pretty clear to me. Which other part am I supposed to quote? There's 2 instances of the word 'keyboard' on that page, and 4 for 'mouse', compared to 23 for 'touch'.

You know who's used to developing for keyboard and mouse? Everyone. Who's used to developing for touch on Windows? Noone.

Why would they need to tell people how to make apps for kb+m users?

[jakem1]

I really don't get it.

No, apparently you don't :p

[Active.]

Why would they need to tell people how to make apps for kb+m users?

Because you can't assume that people will automatically know how to develop great Metro apps with first-class kb+m support?

That's it, Microsoft! Lead by example. . . . :no:

And that's just the thing. At this point, they aren't doing that. At all. Have you seen how the Music app implements moving songs up- or downward in a playlist? Arrows. Freaking arrows you have to click on. It's like a Web app. From 10 years ago. It must either be really difficult to implement proper drag&drop support in WinRT, or... ?

[phailyoor]

What do you mean by "proper" right-click context menu support? From what I can tell, the support for it is just as good in the new experience.

When you right click something in desktop, a thing pops up near the mouse, so you can click it easily. not so in metro.

Because you can't assume that people will automatically know how to develop great Metro apps with first-class kb+m support?

And that's just the thing. At this point, they aren't doing that. At all. Have you seen how the Music app implements moving songs up- or downward in a playlist? Arrows. Freaking arrows you have to click on. It's like a Web app. From 10 years ago.??It must either be really difficult to implement proper drag&drop support in WinRT, or... ?

Drag&Drop support conflicts with touch scrolling. Why should MS need to do more work so that mouse users get a good experience. They can pretend that the mouse cursor is a finger and click the arrows like everyone else.

[@Leo]

There's a lot of selective misquoting of Microsoft going on in this thread. Microsoft never said that Modern apps were designed to be "touch first" suggesting that keyboard and mouse support comes second. They said that touch was a first class citizen in the Modern UI and would work as well as the keyboard and mouse. Their intention was to differentiate Windows 8 from 7 where touch was clearly a second class citizen and not an effective way to interact with applications.

Not sure what kind of software you use, but outside of video players and games (where fullscreen is needed, and UI is very minimal), touch and traditional keyboard and mouse input methods cannot coexist as first class citizens. In fact, tablet touch and large display touch are different as well. Office and Metro demonstrate this perfectly. Office is not a touch first class citizen (despite how much Microsoft attempts to blow smoke and fanboys reciting blindly). It is usable, but not really, it will drive you insane in minutes. Metro on the other hand looks out of place with a mouse on a 30" screen, because I have this small cursor which can get everywhere, but I have these HUGE blocks of wasted space. To tell you a secret, if I had a touch 30" screen, I would dislike that crap as well, as I don't need 10cm block to press on with my finger.

Apple sorted the issue with mobile devices properly - one version for each. If you compare Pages on iPad with Pages or Word on Mac, they are worlds apart in both functionality and use methodology.

But no, Microsoft would have us believe that mouse and finger on small screen is the same (and the monkeys that blindly recite the same canned arguments). :rolleyes: Well, believe this: The only reason this is happening is Microsoft hopes to fool developers into thinking the desktop is dying and instead they should focus on their own store. Everything is purely economical for them. And they cannot afford to do two stores, like Apple, because then developers will only focus on the desktop store, leaving their mobile store at pathetic state (like their WP7 store).

[Shane Nokes]

^ I think someone in here is upset for some reason they don't wish to share...considering that apps on WP7 are doing just fine, and apps on WP8 will be doing even better. :)

[phailyoor]

^ I think someone in here is upset for some reason they don't wish to share...considering that apps on WP7 are doing just fine, and apps on WP8 will be doing even better. :)

Selling wp7 apps is so easy, because for that 4% of smartphone users, they don't really have much of a choice when it comes to apps.

[Shane Nokes]

Selling wp7 apps is so easy, because for that 4% of smartphone users, they don't really have much of a choice when it comes to apps.

This holds up for iPhone & Android users as well. They are locked-in to a specific app store to load their phones.

I mean if you're going to refute a point don't post something up that is obvious and applies to the competition as well. It's not like WP7 users are going to run out and buy apps off iTunes or Google Play for their phones. It's not like Android users are going to run to iTunes or the Windows Phone Marketplace to buy their apps either.

All 3 primary competitors are using walled-garden approaches to purchasing apps for the devices. So to claim that WP7 apps do well because you can only buy WP7 apps on WP devices is basically a 'Well duh,' scenario.

[Calum Veteran]

When you right click something in desktop, a thing pops up near the mouse, so you can click it easily. not so in metro.

[. . .]

As I mentioned, this seems to work great in the new experience in Windows 8 :) Highlight something in the address bar of the "Metro" Internet Explorer and right-click. That's just one example. Or, just right-click anything that you'd usually right-click for useful options.

[Shane Nokes]

As I mentioned, this seems to work great in the new experience in Windows 8 :) Highlight something in the address bar of the "Metro" Internet Explorer and right-click. That's just one example.

I think that users only experience really seems to be with the start screen...which does behave as they've stated. Some of the apps behave that way as well, but that's a developer issue, not a limitation of Metro itself, which you've pointed out. :)

[phailyoor]

As I mentioned, this seems to work great in the new experience in Windows 8 :) Highlight something in the address bar of the "Metro" Internet Explorer and right-click. That's just one example. Or, just right-click anything that you'd usually right-click for useful options.

If you never noticed, the context menu comes up near the mouse for a reason. Do you need that reason explained in detail?

[redfish]

Here are some non-tablet, non-touch applications of Metro apps that I'll predict now will be very common uses once Windows 8 is out for a while:

1. Apps primarily used for their live tile / notification support, such as calendar, weather, auction status. These will replace desktop gadgets.

2. Games, including XBox live games.

3. Full-screen experiences, such as slideshows, movies, etc; used as a replacement for Media Center apps.

4. Terminal type applications, such as filling out surveys at stores and events. iPads are already being used for this in some places. (May or may not be set up to use touch input)

[Calum Veteran]

If you never noticed, the context menu comes up near the mouse for a reason. Do you need that reason explained in detail?

It comes up near the mouse in the new Windows 8 experience.

Congratulations on being someone who likes to be unnecessarily rude, though. Don't worry; I'll be the bigger, better man, and stay polite, despite your terrible rudeness.

Every time I right-click in the new experience and a context menu appears, the context menu appears right near the mouse, just like it does in the old experience. I can reproduce that behaviour right now.

EDIT:

Attached is a screenshot of this behaviour. I right-clicked, and that context menu appeared just above the pointer, with my pointer mere millimetres below the last option (thus, right near the context menu, just like in the old experience).

[phailyoor]

It comes up near the mouse in the new Windows 8 experience.

Congratulations on being someone who likes to be unnecessarily rude, though. Don't worry; I'll be the bigger, better man, and stay polite, despite your terrible rudeness.

Every time I right-click in the new experience and a context menu appears, the context menu appears right near the mouse, just like it does in the old experience. I can reproduce that behaviour right now.

O rly? What about the start screen. What about skydrive? What about mail? What about calendar? The only metro app that has context menus is IE, and that's probably because MS probably couldn't figure out how to do it without them. Oh, and there are the rest of the apps, where there's absolutely nothing to right click. What a waste of a mouse button....

Edit:

oh, my bad. You were referring tho those few times where you actually see a context menu, rather than the app bar. Well, I guess you're right. It's there. Whenever MS can't figure out how to put what should be in a context menu into the app-bar, a context menu gets thrown in. Still, you can't call having max 6 entries and no sub-menus proper support.

[Shane Nokes]

O rly? What about the start screen. What about skydrive? What about mail? What about calendar? The only metro app that has context menus is IE, and that's probably because MS probably couldn't figure out how to do it without them. Oh, and there are the rest of the apps, where there's absolutely nothing to right click. What a waste of a mouse button....

Hence why I stated earlier that there is nothing that prevents the developer from creating a standard right-click context menu. It is the developers choice to either implement or not implement the menu function.

It's not a failure in the OS since it can be done. It's up to each dev to decide if they want to implement it or not.

[Calum Veteran]

O rly? What about the start screen. What about skydrive? What about mail? What about calendar? The only metro app that has context menus is IE, and that's probably because MS probably couldn't figure out how to do it without them.

You're wrong. The context menu does not only exist in Internet Explorer. One can highlight content in an email in the Mail app, right-click, and a context menu will appear, allowing the user to copy the content. Context menus are probably used in some other apps, too. Your posts indicate that you haven't used Windows 8 much, and thus you may not have given it a fair chance.

The new Windows 8 experience seems to make an effort of doing things right, finally. Such context menus should only be used when the options the menus provide are useful, and luckily, after much use, that is what I've experienced in Windows 8.

One can right-click on an empty space in the Desktop Internet Explorer, and a silly context menu will appear with options such as "Back," "Refresh" etc (even though those options are accessible elsewhere in the UI). I'm glad that Microsoft are moving away from such concepts, creating an environment in which little redundancy exists, and in which all the options an app provides are useful and not unneeded