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Is there a way to check if the user has pinned the primary/application tile to their start screen?

kernanb
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1 Answers1

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There is no programmatic way to know if the primary tile is pinned. The ActiveTiles collection always contains the primary tile. The basic reasoning for not knowing if the tile is pinned or not goes like this:

  • Tiles should always have up-to-date information
  • If an app detects that the tile is not currently pinned, it might not update it
  • If the app doesn't update it, but then the user pins the tile later on, it will be out of date

So the decision was made to always return the primary tile and the guidance for applications to always update it.

What is the particular reason you have for wanting to know if the tile is pinned or not?

Peter Torr - MSFT
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  • The documentation for [ActiveTiles](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/microsoft.phone.shell.shelltile.activetiles(v=vs.105).aspx) indicates that it "gets the collection of an application’s Tiles **pinned** to Start". Is it wrong or did I misunderstand? – spender Jan 05 '15 at 01:49
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    The docs are telling the truth but not the whole truth -- it is the collection of tiles pinned to Start **and** the primary tile. – Peter Torr - MSFT Jan 05 '15 at 01:54
  • In the settings of my app I have a toggle switch between live tile and static tile for the primary tile. The template being used is CycleTile. Live tile will cycle through a set of images. If the user selects static tile, then the CycleTile image collection will just consist of one image, the app icon. I’d like this toggle switch to be disabled if the user hasn’t pinned the primary tile to the start screen yet. It could be confusing for the user to switch between live tile and static tile options, when it’s unknown if the user has even pinned the primary tile to the start screen yet. – kernanb Jan 05 '15 at 13:28
  • Your situation is similar to the situation described above, although not exactly the same. This is something else the design is meant to cover though. If the tile isn't already pinned, you're asking them to exit the app and pin your tile before they can set how it looks. Seems a bit backwards. – Peter Torr - MSFT Jan 05 '15 at 15:23
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    Some of our enterprise users don't know they can pin apps to their start screen and as such they miss out on the live tile benefit. It would be nice to check if they don't have the app pinned and provide them a prompt with advice on how to Pin to Start. – RichardD Jan 20 '16 at 10:55
  • Thanks Richard, that's a good example of where such an API might be useful. – Peter Torr - MSFT Jan 21 '16 at 04:02
  • Knowing if the primary tile is pinned is crucial because the app can ask for permission to create a Secondary Tile but not a primary one. So how do we know if we must update the primary tile or the secondary tile? – andreszs Oct 10 '17 at 14:33