Start 11 in Windows 10 format

from Stardock Forums

 

The Windows 10 format is close now, but no cigar yet.  In Windows 10 format, I had the option to show more tiles in settings which allowed two large tiles to fit in a group next to each other.  That ought to be an option.  Further, with EdgeTile Creators Edition from the store, icons were full sized filling the entire footprint of the tile.  For those of us who are vision impaired, I could really use this.   This would enable me to use it as I did windows 10.

Finally, in my own start menu, I can use  the scroll wheel to dynmically change icon sizes.

 

That's my wish list.

         Thanks, Norm A,

stardock software start menu products
4,329 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Hello,
I have forward your request to the Stardock Support Team for their review and recommendations. Please keep an eye on this thread for any updates. We really do appreciate your feedback, Thanks

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant.

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

 

Okay you got the show tiles thing working.  Two large tiles fit in a group.  However you still are not recognizing the way Microsoft collaborated with the EDGETILE developer to have full frame icons.  Why make the frame of the icon larger (about 2.5 times icon size) but with more empty space? Makes zero sense and ignores actual specs used by Microsoft, aka, you show frame size at 255k but icons at 96 which was what Microsoft did pre-collaboration,  Even in your windows 11  start menu, your frame size and icon size are the same.  Unfortunately, the frame size is much smaller.  Here are a few screen shots I used In Windows 10 with Edgetile/Microsoft support -- The key is that your windows 10 icons have too much dead space.  With this one change, I think the windows 1o is good to go.  Without it, I will not use it,  All you need is one more setting that allows the icon size to be mximized in your frame size.  Please do this. pretty please!

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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Have you turned on the experimental tile image loading?

Open regedit, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Stardock\Start8\Start8.ini\Start8

Create a new REG_SZ value called LoadTiles and give it a value of 1

Then sign out and in again.

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Yes, I did add that value and set it to 1.  Signing out and in again had same results, a large outer frame and s image size 1/3 of that. So unless I hear from you again, I think we are done.  But from our interactions, I can tell that you did not try edgetile creators edition from the microsoft store.  If you do, you will see the obvious different outer frame size and the size of the icon size.  Try it on a machine that does not have start11 installed.

 

These will be way more obvious and desirable.  As far as I am concerned, I am done with your product except to keep its taskbar.

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting nacunis, reply 4



Yes, I did add that value and set it to 1.  Signing out and in again had same results, a large outer frame and s image size 1/3 of that. So unless I hear from you again, I think we are done.  But from our interactions, I can tell that you did not try edgetile creators edition from the microsoft store.  If you do, you will see the obvious different outer frame size and the size of the icon size.  Try it on a machine that does not have start11 installed.

 

These will be way more obvious and desirable.  As far as I am concerned, I am done with your product except to keep its taskbar.
End of nacunis's quote

If your shortcuts have defined tile images it should be loading up the tiles now which will fill the entire block.

If the shortcut doesn't have that information then you would get the icons as you do now (and as you would have had under Win 10 likewise).

Obviously the feature is still experimental so there could always be a possible reason why it isn't loading the data assuming your shortcuts do have them correctly set?

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

There isn't much to creating a shortcut so what is in them has pretty standard info.  Edgetile creators edition was really decent that way.  And as Microsoft worked with Edgetile, they had a technique that increased the icon size from 96 to 254 pixels.  That's the root of the problem.  Microsoft was motivated to fix this to make start tiles something that worked better for them. Ultimately, they eliminated it entirely.  So, it is not entirely unexpected that stardock had a different outcome.  In my alternative, I was fortunate to have tile size entirely managed by the mouse wheel..   Ultimately, it proved better for me use.  Oh well, CHEERS!

                       Norm Acunis 

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
Quoting neuromatico, reply 7
Reduced 90%
Original 322 x 429



Thanks, Neil. That worked, but as you can see, not for all tiles.

End of neuromatico's quote

Do the other apps have defined tiles?

 

Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting nacunis, reply 6



There isn't much to creating a shortcut so what is in them has pretty standard info.  Edgetile creators edition was really decent that way.  And as Microsoft worked with Edgetile, they had a technique that increased the icon size from 96 to 254 pixels.  That's the root of the problem.  Microsoft was motivated to fix this to make start tiles something that worked better for them. Ultimately, they eliminated it entirely.  So, it is not entirely unexpected that stardock had a different outcome.  In my alternative, I was fortunate to have tile size entirely managed by the mouse wheel..   Ultimately, it proved better for me use.  Oh well, CHEERS!

                       Norm Acunis 
End of nacunis's quote

All edgetile does is create a series of tile images for an application.  A tile image has a series of sizes and shapes (well two shapes, wide and not wide) and the content can be anything.  No doubt they avoided going bigger than 254 pixels to allow space for a 1 pixel border.

It may well be that we are not loading up all tile images currently as the feature is experimental.  This is something that will be enabled by default by the 1.1 release so we will be working further on it now that 1.0 is out.  As you can see from the post after yours, Start11 will indeed load up tile images and they do fill the entire tile.

If you like huge icons, I should mention that the Win11 style menu lets you change icon size and the ratio to icon to spacing is considerably smaller and doesn't need you to create tiles for each of your apps either.  You can even hide the label to reduce spacing yet further.