Windows Store App Guidelines on editor applications

Question

Most demos and webcasts that introduce and explain Windows Store App are about content consuming applications. Are there any design guidelines for creating editor apps?

Question I have include:

• Is it advisable to take the Metro route here?
• What to do with things like toolbars (think formatting, etc), as the appbar isn't that big, and you're not supposed to include toolbars

Answer 1

This really depends on how complicated of an editor application you have in mind.

I think anything heavy weight apps are meant for desktop only and not for metro. For example the Office suite is going to be ran on Desktop mode even on a mobile device according to Steven Sinofsky: "Within the Windows desktop, WOA includes desktop versions of the new Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, codenamed “Office 15”". Here WOA refers to Windows On ARM; Windows 8 is going to be tuned towards mobile touch-able devices based on ARM architecture.

Also, according to this article, you can only have Metro mode apps for ARM; only MS will be able to distribute desktop mode apps.

However, you can still write simple and light weight applications, such as a simple photo editor or notepad I guess. In fact, a google search turned up a commercial image processing library for Metro mode.