No background image on large tiles in WP8 - wrong element used in WMAppManifest.xml

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  • Problem
  • Updated 6 years ago
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Why does Windows Phone 8 build create a WMAppManifest.xml with Windows Phone 7.1 element TemplateType5 in the PrimaryToken node? The problem becomes apparent when you pin your WP8 app to the start menu and resize the tile to the wide size - there is no background image anymore.

The correct way to control app tiles in WP8 is to use the TemplateFlip element to apply a Flip tile template. There are also iconic and cycle tiles, which would have been nice. Especially the iconic tile as it is the tile that most resembles the tile created by TemplateType5.
Another upside to the appropriate tile templates for WP8 is that the large tile can be forcefully disabled.

Especially now that WP7 is facing deprecation should this problem be addressed. On that not I also hope that you will add support for WP8.1 shortly, but that's a whole other topic.
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Statens vegvesen Vegdirektoratet

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Posted 6 years ago

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Photo of Statens vegvesen Vegdirektoratet

Statens vegvesen Vegdirektoratet

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I see this has been marked as "Not a problem". How is it not a problem that WP 8 builds insert a WP 7.1 element in the app manifest? First off it's just plain wrong. Secondly, while it does work, it doesn't work properly.

If someone thinks it's "not a problem", I will still request feedback concerning when this issue will be mended.
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ismael jimoh

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Hi Statens,

You could consider this workaround of converting the xap to a .zip file, then unzip and edit the manifest to the appropriate format.

Zip the files back to .xap after making the changes.

Thanks.
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Statens vegvesen Vegdirektoratet

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Thank you for your response, ismael! That is a possible solution which should work.

But I still hope that PGB will take this in as a to-do. Like I said, when you're deprecating support for WP7 it makes even less sense to produce WP7 manifest element for your WP8 manifest. I doubt I'm the only one who would appreciate this :)