[Windows 10, 8, 7, XP etc.] Zanoroy:
(Keeping these links working in this tool is a pain is the butt.. if a link is not working just look at the attached images at the bottom of the post)

Tile Mate is for those that want to use the Windows Metro screen with customized tiles.

As of Windows 10 custom tiles can no longer be inserted onto the metro screen (note: If you are using Windows 8 you may find that Oblytile is what you are looking for).

I have created Tile Mate to achieve two things.

I am a developer and want to have a play with Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)

I liked my customized tiles and wanted the same for Windows 10.

Having created it I thought others may want to use it so here it is:

I have attached a few screen shots just to show how I have used it for myself.

To show and hide the Metro like Screen is toggled by holding Alt and pressing the windows key (press and release the windows key while the alt key is down) .

The rest of application is basically point and click (one exception is that if you want to adjust the icon images after you have selected them, just click on the icon/tile preview on the "Tile Management" screen and a popup will allow the adjustments)

Tile drag N Drop (right mouse button) as well as re-sizing is all done in the same manner as the Metro Screen.

Clicking on the Settings bar icon in the top left corner will allow you to open the Tile Management screen to add/delete or adjust tiles.

Holding down the ALT key with the setting slider open displays the "Exit button".

Adding a background to the form: right click on any part of the page and a context menu will display the option to "Set Background"

Groups can be named by mousing over the header of the Group

You can also add backgrounds to the Tile Groups by mousing over the header of the group and clicking on the setting Bars icon which in turn will open the background options allowing you to adjust the left, top offsets, the width and height of the background image (remember the image will then be automatically re-sized and/or cropped to match your Tile Group size as needed, depending on the number and layout of your tiles)

Setting the "Only show under tiles" will cause the background Image to only be shown where the tiles (set the tiles background color to be transparent for best effect ;) ) are. As such otherwise the image is applied to the group background

Any application can can be launched from the "Windows Run" input can be launched in Tile Mate including: Webpages, Steam games, VBS scripts - as well as any executable program (if you find some that don't work and you think they should please PM me)

User is prompted to use the applications embedded (standard) icon after selecting the "program" when creating a new tile

User can add a background image that will be displayed when the mouse moves over the tile

A few other little features I haven't mentioned (hopefully all useful)

Files:

Tile Mate will create a AppData folder:

C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Tile Mate\

(The Tile description xml file and All icons/border images will be moved into that folder)

Please experiment, and let me know your thoughts. Although I did write this for myself I'm interested in feedback.

Change Log: 0.8(b) :good:

Bug Fixes:

* Fixed the "first" tile created not showing until Tile Mate was restarted.

* Fixed the group options box opening outside of the screen bounds (eg open the options on the left hand side of the screen it was possible for half the options box to be off the screen)

Additions:

* Added a mouse over background to the tiles, now you can display a custom background (that fades in) over each tile. I found this good for my gaming tiles

* Added a video trailer option in the XML file (yet to be added to the options screen) that plays any MP4 video (center screen) when the mouse is over the tile

Change Log: 0.7(a)

* Implemented the flag checks - eg 'Run as Administrator', Hidden, Single Instance ect. all working correctly now

* Added the ability to change the language (in the code at least, I need to translate the actual language file entries, and hope google translate does a good job ;) )

* Added more context menu options to the tiles

Edit Tile (Open the 'Tile management' screen with the current tile selected)

Run as Administrator (if the target application is on the local PC)

Open file location (if the target application is on the local PC)

Tile Size (move this to a sub-menu, and the current tile size is not select-able)

Change Log: 0.6(a)

Addition:

* Small tiles can now be used to insert a new Tile Group (between existing groups - hence the "insert" bit)

* Typing while Tile Mate is displaying will open the Windows Search (Cortana) screen to search on user input please note: Holding any modifier key (shift - ctrl - alt) when the first key is pressed will stop Cortana from opening)

Bug fixes:

* Fixed Tile Ground background edit form from being able to crash the application

* Fixed the small tiles from highlighting the "insert" Tile Group bar.

* Fixed a tile drag 'n' drop when a tile only partially covers the drop zone base tiles were not always moving far enough

* Fixed Z-Index of the Tile being Dragged so it always appear on top

Change Log: 0.5(a) - (Bug fixes)

* Fixed the tile re-sizing

* Fixed a tile drag 'n' drop when a tile only partially covers the drop zone base tiles were not always moving far enough

Change Log: 0.4(a)

* Added the ability to change the Tile Group background via the interface, to access mouse over the group heading and click on the setting bars icon to open the popup

When adjusting the image offsets, width and height the system will not allow you to go outside the bounds of the original image (although I just thought of a bug if you set the Width or height to a negative number it will crash.. You will deserve it but I will fix it...)

* Added "File Explorer", "Windows Settings" and "Search" to the quick lunch bar

* Moved the "set background" to a context menu, simply right click the anywhere in background and select from popup menu.

* Added a Donate to developer (hey, if you feel like it great.. otherwise just enjoy I wrote this for myself anyway)

* Fixed an issue where a long group name would not display correctly when only one column was filled (the fix may hamper some drag and drop features on extremely long group titles, needs further testing)

Change Log: 0.3(a)

* Add the ability to add/change the background image. (Main form) -- The groups background is a WIP

* Add a drop-down list to the form to show tiles for a specific group to allow the user to local and modify tiles easier

Bugs I have noted (So far):

*

The first tile created does NOT show until tile mate is closed and restarted. Major bug - next to be fixed.

* The Group Options popup doesn't test screen location, therefore a group on the left hand side of the screen the popup menu is useless

* I have noticed when changing the size of a tile, the detection process is not allows finding over lapping tiles and therefore is not moving all intersecting tiles (high priority)

* Background on Groups needs to do better checking if the user is not thinking the application can be crashed (medium priority)

* Small tiles cause the "new" group bar to highlight on all tile groups, this should be only available on the "last" tile group in the set (low priority)

* during drag 'n' drop the tile being dragged can sometimes be one z-index lower than its partner tiles(low priority)

Regards Zanoroy (Bruce for those of you paying attention)