Modern Tile Maker: Pin Custom Tiles or Programs on the Start Screen
Not long ago, I had published an article on how to create custom tiles for Windows 8 Start Screen. I have already reviewed a small application called OblyTile to create custom tiles for the Start Screen and it was rather popular with Windows 8 users. Windows 8 Start Screen is a good replacement of the Start Menu but it has some limitations; you can’t create and pin your own customized tile on the Start Screen. Users can only pin the installed programs and not portable or custom files like doc, text and other similar file formats. But OblyTile has made it easy and anyone can now put custom tiles or create any type of shortcut on the Start Screen.
Like OblyTile, there is a similar application released by the popular blog on Windows TWC. They have released a customization tool called Modern Tile Maker and although it has some features that are similar to OblyTile, it has more advanced features too. Modern Tile Maker supports the preview function wherein you can preview the tile that you are going to build before pinning it on the Start Screen. One other feature of this app is that you can set any custom web URL as Tile on the Start Screen. Thus you can start your favorite websites directly from Windows 8 Start Screen without manually opening them in the browser. It also has several customization options for colors and tile design.
How does Modern Tile Maker Work?
Unlike most of the other customization tools available, Modern Tile Maker is more user-friendly and has a straight forward process to create any custom tile on the Start Screen. It comes in an installed package; just follow the steps and it will automatically pin items to the Start Screen. Once you start this application, everything is very easy to configure. In all, you have to enter three details to create any custom tile.
The first one is Display Name – it has a 20 Character Limit and can be any type of name. For example, I have used Google Talk. You can enable or disable the option to show the Display name on the Tile. You can also choose the Display Text Color from the color bar, another nice feature of this app.
Now, locate the file or directory that you want to link with your custom tile. It can be anything from a program, file, directory or a web path (like www.google.com ). Check the box labeled “Application Runs as Administrator” to run the custom tile with administrator privilege.
This is the third and final step where you need to set the Tile color using the color bar. You can also click on the Use Color only (No Image) option to disable the tile image and create a tile only with the color that you select from the color bar.
While you are configuring the tile settings, the preview window on the right-side will show all the changes so you get an idea about how your custom tile will look after pinning it on the Start Screen. Once you are satisfied with the design and style of the tile, click on the Pin to Start button.
Now check the Start Screen to see whether the new tile is pinned or not.
Features:
- Add any File type to the Start screen. Files such as Images launch using their default program.
- Add any Directory(Folder) to the Start screen.
- Add Web Shortcuts to the Start screen. Just enter the address of the webpage you want the shortcut to direct to.
- When you begin to create the Tile you will be prompted to select your default browser. Choose the Text to display on the tile, Text Fore-color or choose to not display Text on the tile.
- Choose a Color for the tile which is shown if the image selected is transparent or not 150x150px
- Creates a Backup the tiles settings to allow you to Edit the tile whenever you choose.
- Creates a Backup of the Tile Image you create for use with other tiles.
- Includes 100 Transparent Tile Images formatted for use when displaying text or not displaying text (200 total images).
