How to use badge notifications

Starting with Windows 8, when you pin a website to the Start menu, Windows can periodically contact the server to check whether updates are available. In this section, you learn how to define badge metadata, and how a server should respond to requests for badge updates.

Note  Badge notifications are available starting with Windows 8.

 

Description

The fresh tweets sample app demonstrates how to build a website that supports the pinned site and badge notification features of the new Windows UI. The site scans for Twitter messages sent to one of four user accounts, within the specified time limit. For example, it can show you messages sent to @microsoft within the past half hour.

When the app is pinned to the Start menu, Windows refreshes the app tile periodically to show activity. Unlike pinned site notifications in Windows Internet Explorer 9, the app tile is updated even if the site is not running in the browser, as shown here:

Features

This sample app demonstrates these features:

  • Dynamically producing the metadata used for badge notifications
  • Clearing the badge state and requesting updates
  • Generating badge state updates based on user preferences

Tasks

Topic Description

Defining badge metadata

This topic describes how a site developer can use metadata to indicate that a badge update web service is available.

Requesting badge updates

This topic explains how to request badge updates from the client, and describes the XML file format returned by the server when responding to badge update requests.

Enabling Hi-Res Favicons in the new Windows UI

 

How to Provide Notifications

Internet Explorer 9 Samples and Tutorials

Pinned Sites Developer Documentation