Windows 8 Pin METAs

By  on  

Windows 8 allows for adding websites as apps (or maybe "bookmarks" is a better term) to the home screen, much in the vein that iOS allows users to do the same.  Like iOS devices, Windows 8 allows  users to accomplish this same task using custom META tags embedded within the page HTML:

<meta name="msapplication-TileColor" content="#FF0000" />
<meta name="msapplication-TileImage" content="/windows8-icon.png" />

The image size should be 144x144 and you'll want to define a custom background color with the META tag above.  Tags like these are invaluable -- very little HTML to add but a giant convenience to users.  Remember that the easier it is to get to your site, the more likely they will come back often!

Recent Features

  • By
    Page Visibility API

    One event that's always been lacking within the document is a signal for when the user is looking at a given tab, or another tab. When does the user switch off our site to look at something else? When do they come back?

  • By
    CSS Filters

    CSS filter support recently landed within WebKit nightlies. CSS filters provide a method for modifying the rendering of a basic DOM element, image, or video. CSS filters allow for blurring, warping, and modifying the color intensity of elements. Let's have...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    CSS Circles

    A while back I shared a clever technique for creating triangles with only CSS. Over the past year, I've found CSS triangles incredibly effective, especially when looking to create tooltips or design elements with a likewise pointer pattern. There's another common shape...

  • By
    Fix Anchor URLs Using MooTools 1.2

    The administrative control panel I build for my customers features FCKEditor, a powerful WYSIWYG editor that allows the customer to add links, bold text, create ordered lists, and so on. I provide training and documentation to the customers but many times they simply forget to...

Discussion

  1. MaxArt

    I wonder if there are HTTP headers that allows to do the same.

  2. How do you actually go about adding the website as an app in windows 8?

  3. Stephen

    Even though we *can* do this… it really bugs me that we have 8 different ways to set this kind of stuff per browser/device.

    IMHO, it would have been much better if all browsers used the same “link” “favicon” in PNG/GIF/JPG format… and it had attributes for different size icons (device/browser to choose the best size for its needs)

    Instead we have IE searching the at the server root for an icon in *.ico format, special meta tags for iOS, different tags for Windows8, etc. From a *lightweight* mobile perspective… cramming umpteen meta tags in to handle all the potential devices is totally counter productive!

    Oh well… I guess this is progress!

  4. why iOS allows users to do the same.

  5. Magnus

    I agree with Stephen, with every other OS and social media site adding their own meta tags it’s bloating up the element.

  6. Magnus

    That should have read head element.

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!