How to smarten up your Live Tile web bookmaks with custom artwork

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How many websites have you got pinned to your start menu? I suspect that some people will have quite a few, and others will not have realised that it could be done. But one of the drawbacks is that the generated thumbnail of the website that populates the live tile can sometimes be a bit messy looking. Not to worry, though, as Ian Moulster has documented a method to replace that view with custom artwork.

Now of course, this being the Windows Phone, it’s simple to pin the website to your start screen just like any other app so that you can launch it easily. And that works great, but there were a few things that bugged me:

  • As it’s a web page you won’t get any notification toasts popping up
  • You also won’t get a live tile count of notifications
  • And finally, the tile icon is just a snapshot of the webpage which can look a bit untidy. I would prefer to see the Facebook logo.

The example given is Facebook... While you have access to some of Facebook in the People Hub, or through the dedicated Facebook application, there are those who would prefer to use the mobile website (touch.facebook.com), but the principle of replacing the generated thumbnail with an icon, is one that fits in with the simple beauty that the start menu and live tiles provide.

And if you're a website developer, you might want to think about this method of providing an icon for Windows Phone users to pin instead of the thumbnail!

Source / Credit: Ian Moulster (MSDN Blogs)