With Windows 8 Microsoft introduced the «Modern UI» which featured a tile based start screen as a replacement for the start menu from previous Windows versions. The customizable start screen allowed to pin Windows Store apps and classic Win32 applications to the tile grid. While Store apps appeared with a nice modern look on the start screen, the old Win32 apps would leave inconsistent looking tiles with no customization options (see pictures).

To solve this problem, I dedicated a term paper during my bachelor's studies to developing a rich client application, which allows the user to create and customize start screen tiles for Win32 applications.

The main use case of the final application allows the user to select a Win32 application to which TileTailor then searches for tiles online on a custom server. The user can choose a tile from the search results and pin the selected tile to the start screen. The user can also customize the tile to his liking and change any parameter of the tile. Additionally, there are options to create system tiles for shutdown and the control panel or tiles for Steam games.

TileTailor also works offline. The user can choose to create custom tiles without searching the TileTailor servers. Here the user has to use own images to create the tile.

2013

• German user manual for TileTailor [PDF]