

MS: announcing Metro style theme for jQuery Mobile. - shinvee
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/interoperability/archive/2012/04/26/more-news-from-ms-open-tech-announcing-the-open-source-metro-style-theme.aspx

======
knowtheory
This is very cool, and the Metro guys are doing a lot of things right. The one
thing that annoys me is this:

"Important. IE browser is required for the full metro experience."

What experience are we missing? And why can't you deliver it to other
browsers?

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
It works in other browsers but IE, for instance, has Metro styling for form
elements by default in Windows 8.

Plus I believe it's slightly better optimised for some things, and some Metro
features use vendor-prefixed CSS only MS supports just now, I think.

~~~
chris_wot
Where can we see examples of this styling? I'd be interested in seeing how to
get it working in Chrome/Firefox.

------
jenius
I can't tell if this is serious or not... I mean it's on msdn so I assume it
is? It strikes me as very strange that the article goes "look how gorgeous the
theme looks" and then shows screenshots below that clearly look terrible...

~~~
huggyface
I had an identical reaction -- if I didn't know better I would have thought
the lead in "The theme looks just gorgeous, doesn’t it?" was _sarcastic_.

I honestly don't get Metro, or the love of it, though I know that taste for
such things are entirely subjective. A ridiculous low data density, elements
not conforming to usability / aesthetics relative to their container (the
whole giant text covering multiple viewports thing), a mishmash of contrasting
colour tiles. It really, really isn't my thing. I hear it sells to people like
the Woz, but in my opinion it's just a terrible interface that is heralded
purely because few have used it in any functional way.

~~~
untog
Have you used it in a functional way?

I have, and I genuinely think the interface is great, but that third party
developers often get it wrong (resulting in the low data density you mention).
There shouldn't be any mish-mash of contrasting colour- WP has one highlight
color, along with the black and white. The giant text covering viewports is an
indication that you can swipe left or right to see additional views- there
isn't a parallel in iOS so if you haven't experienced it then it does look
strange.

------
54mf
The demo is laggy on my iPhone 4. The "fixed" header and footer don't stay
fixed when scrolling; they only jump back in to position after the scroll
ends, feels like a pre-iOS 5 Javascript hack. None of the navigation seems to
work.

Maybe the experience really is better in an IE browser (never thought I'd say
those words), but I highly doubt it. I haven't known any browser - Windows
Phone or Android - to handle HTML/CSS/JS better than iOS, so I'd be really
surprised. I'm going to be attending a Windows Phone demo event thing this
week, will test the demo on a Lumia 900 there and see how it runs.

I really like Metro, and want Windows Phone to succeed (more competition is
always a good thing), but this feels like a miss to me. Cordova/PhoneGap
support is a big deal, and a great pursuit on their part, but as far as I'm
concerned jQuery Mobile should be taken out back behind the barn. It looks
cheap and performs horribly, and it gives mobile sites and apps a bad
reputation.

~~~
josephcooney
I just tried it on my Lumia 800, and it wasn't that great there either
(especially the 'fixed' header and footer, which seems to behave just as you
describe).

~~~
54mf
Ugh. I was afraid of that. Less time on JQM themes and more time on modern CSS
support would be so, so much more beneficial in the long run, both for users
and for developers.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
IE10 has much better CSS support. It's just not released yet. I don't know why
people keep complaining about this, though.

------
jeffehobbs
Good for them. It's nice to see MS trying to integrate with existing projects
and communities rather than squish them or pave them over.

~~~
troels
embrace extend extinguish

------
nl
I've been doing some JQuery Mobile stuff lately (inside PhoneGap) and I've
been pretty happy.

I did notice that there is an Android Holo theme on Github
(<https://github.com/jjoe64/jquery-mobile-android-theme>) but I have no idea
how complete it is.

------
mwsherman
Unfortunately, this works poorly (using WinPhone on HTC Radar). It's not
"buggy", it just has little of the usability/interaction of actual Metro. The
styling is nice, though.

I think something pretty close to Metro should be achievable. Perhaps jQ
Mobile can be updated to better accomodate the use cases.

------
untog
All they need now is for IE to support things like 3D tranforms- you can't
fully replicate Metro without it.

~~~
54mf
Agreed. Like I mentioned in another comment, they should really spend more
time on modern CSS support and less time on themes.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
IE10 already has modern CSS support, in fact I believe it has some newer
features other browsers don't have yet. Unfortunately it's not yet released,
although it's in the Win8 Consumer Preview.

~~~
54mf
Not to mention, when will those trickle down to the Windows Phone version of
IE?

~~~
untog
In Windows Phone 8 - the idea is that both Phone and Desktop will be released
somewhat simultaneously.

------
aymeric
I find the Metro style on mobile "unsexy", quite unfinished. The buttons for
example are fairly ugly, but it is just a matter of taste...

------
sad_panda
Hooray, <h1>, <h2>, <h3> tags, now for your mobile phone!

