>>I was thinking if you had a VFP app with a SQL Server backend that it would be neat to have one of those metro tiles work kinda like a dashboard - so if you had a warehouse/inventory app the tile could show things like orders for the day, sales for the day - or whatever stuff like that. ...of course VFP is going away but hey it could squeeze a little more life out of it...hahahaha
>
>But you can likely do that if you're willing to build a small stub using using the WinRT runtime (.NET or HTML/CSS/JS). The tiles are part of a Metro application and it's possible to build a small loader app that manages the tiles and then fires off you main app.
>
>
>+++ Rick ---
>

Hi Rick,

As far as I can tell, that kind of thing is not possible with WinRT. The whole sense of automation is not present. A Metro app cannot start another app, unless a user manually uses the Share feature. I wrote a blog entry about this back when Metro was unveiled:

http://weblogs.foxite.com/joelleach/2011/09/19/thoughts-on-metro-and-the-windows-runtime/

If that link doesn't work, try http://weblogs.foxite.com/joel_leach/2011/09/19/thoughts-on-metro-and-the-windows-runtime/. Forgive the formatting. Foxite recently converted to Wordpress and there were some issues.

Since I wrote the article, I learned that MS may open some of the WinRT API to .NET running on the desktop, but that's more for the sake of portability than introducing any new functionality. UI stuff won't be exposed. Maybe some of this will change, but I doubt it because it would break the security model, which is closer to a web browser than a desktop app as we know it.

If you want to run Metro and VFP on the desktop, you would have to install and launch the apps separately, then communicate between the two using network protocols like http or sockets. Perhaps someone (*hint* *hint*) could write a lightweight server to make this easier. If you just want the tiled interface on a desktop app, then a third-party control like DevExpress offers is an option.

>>
>>
>>>Windows 8 will run all desktop software that runs on Windows 7. There's an old style desktop that runs classic Windows desktop apps that you can access from the Metro start screen. Icons can also be pinned to the metro start screen and start desktop apps.
>>>
>>>The current preview makes the desktop mode hard to get to, but that will change. There will be plenty of vendors that will continue to serve desktop apps rather than Metro apps for some time to come as Metro doesn't lend itself to complex UIs.
>>>
>>>Metro apps on the other hand will require something different and VFP most likely won't be able to run on the Metro UI unless you use some trickery and call the Metro WinRT APIs to deal with the user interface (which is pretty futile to do from VFP).
>>>
>>>I didn't try VFP on Windows 8, but even if it didn't run I'm 100% sure it will run when Windows 8 ships just not in Metro mode. The same will be true for just about any other existing Windows app.
>>>
>>>My take on this is that Metro will fit only a subset of Windows applications which are geared towards the 'Apps' type of environment. Not every app shipping even speciifcally for Windows 8 will want to run Metro. Complex apps (think photo editing, complex business apps, apps heavy with data entry) are unlikely to be moved to Metro.
>>>
>>>We shall see, but you can bet that Microsoft will have to make sure that just about all apps that run on Windows 7 will also run on Windows 8. If they don't, Microsoft is done. They are taking a big gamble with Windows 8 and if it falls flat Microsoft will be in serious trouble. Somehow I don't think that will happen though - backwards comaptibility has always been Window's biggest strength.
>>>
>>>
>>>+++ Rick ---
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>>>>>I finally manged to get the developers preview edition of Windows 8 to install on my jucker-pc - was wondering if anyone has tried VFP on it yet?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Victor,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Does Windows 8 seem very different from the user interface stand-point? I have not even known that this version is in the works (busy coding :)).
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Wellll.....if you leave it setup the way it ships then oooh yes. Here are some screenshots:
>>>>>>http://techland.time.com/2011/09/13/50-windows-8-screenshots-hardware-photos-and-more/
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Based on what I've seen this is really geared toward touch screens. Now there *is* a registry hack I discovered that puts it all back to the standard windows interface - which I would assume will be a feature at some point.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Anyway taking the plunge now - going to try to install VFP on it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>FYI - the machine I'm using to do all this is a reaaaly old HP TC1100 - hahaha - which does have touch screen but it requires the use of a stylus not finger - which kinda sucks - that & I haven't got the driver for it working yet...
>>>>>
>>>>>Re the registry hack, doesn't that beg the question of why install this version in the first place? I feel zero sense of urgency to install it.
>>>>
>>>>I agree completely.
>>>>
>>>>I hope Microsoft wakes up and repositions it as a tablet OS rather than a do-everything-for-everyone OS. I feel another Vista is in the works.