Windows 10 by 10 series for developers continues with Live Tiles and notifications

Last week Microsoft kicked off their Windows 10 by 10 series for developers by focusing on how to engage customers through the Windows Store. Now in week two, the Windows Apps Team is detailing how developers can engage customers through Lives Tiles and toast notifications in Windows 10.
In this week’s Windows 10 by 10 post, the Windows Apps team details what is new for notifications and Live Tiles in Windows 10 and how developers can use them to create more interactions with their customers. This week’s post details the following features for developers to use in their Windows 10 apps:

• Universal Action Center – Toast notifications appear in a new system area called the Action Center. These notifications show up in Windows desktops, laptops, tablets and phones, and allow for users to interact with them directly in the Action Center.
• Adaptive and interactive toast notifications – In Windows 10, Toast notifications across Windows devices are interactive, so users can act on the notification within the action center. This allows for apps to capture input, and even run app code, within the notification center and without taking the user away from whatever else they were doing on their device.
• Adaptive Live Tile Templates – Live tiles can be organized by a simple markup language, enabling a full flexibility for how content is displayed across devices with varying sized screens, so that the Live Tile always looks right for the device it is on.
• Improved secondary tile pinning behavior – Pinning is now down without any customer or system interaction, so developers Windows 10 apps can execute additional code after the tile is pinned. This enables multiple tiles to be pinned at once and for tile notifications to be sent to them immediately.
• Synchronizing Live Tiles and toast notifications – This enables background tasks to update the app’s Live Tile whenever the app’s notification collection is changed by anything other than the app itself. This allows for the app to automatically execute code whenever the user dismisses a notification, when notifications expire, or new notifications are pushed through.
• Badge unification – Live Tile badges are now unified across devices, ensuring that Live Tile displays are consistent on all devices from Windows 10 PCs to Windows 10 Mobile phones.

The rest of Windows Apps Team’s post includes more technical resources and examples for how to implement adaptive Live Tiles and send adaptive and interactive toast notifications.

Interestingly, the post’s section on Windows 10’s Universal Action Center reveals a screenshot with Microsoft’s unreleased new Messaging app for Windows 10. The screenshot is a perfect example of the interactive features this week’s Windows 10 by 10 post is detailing, as it appears the new Messaging app allows users to respond to messages within the notification center itself. This isn’t the first time that the Messaging app has shown up unexpectedly, as Winbeta reported the app appearing in Microsoft’s 10 reasons to upgrade to Windows 10 videos.
The Windows 10 by 10 post also encourages developers to head over to DVLUP’s “It’s Alive!!!!!!” challenge to claim points and XP for updating apps and implementing the topics suggested by the Windows 10 by 10 series.
As with all the Windows 10 by 10 posts, the weekly articles are meant to kick off conversations with developers on Twitter @WindowsDev using the #Win10x10