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Windows 8 Introduces a New Cross-App Data-Sharing System

Posted by timothy on from the at-least-it-won't-get-exploited-by-malware dept.

There's been a lot of attention to the way Windows 8 looks; reader aabelro writes with an interesting look at one way it behaves. The article begins thus: "Microsoft has created a new mechanism for sharing information between applications in Windows 8 called Windows Share. Apps can share text, bitmaps, HTML, URI, files, and other type of data, and the usage scenarios are numerous. For example, the app receiving the information can post it to Tweeter or Facebook[, making] it easy to post information to a social network without actually visiting it." Here's a short (video) explanation at MSDN, too.

6 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. The embedded video is Silverlight only by hey · · Score: 4, Informative

    I guess I won't watch it.
    (Or you can download 312M)

  2. Android Intents by bsv368 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I would argue this is not a new idea. The same basic concept exists in Android as Intents.

    1. Re:Android Intents by Mekabyte · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I came here to say the same thing. Also, Google and Mozilla are experimenting with making such functionality available to webapps as Web Intents / Web Activities http://webintents.org/ http://mozillalabs.com/blog/2011/07/web-apps-update-experiments-in-web-activities-app-discovery/ I hope Microsoft will join the effort rather than making a separate system.

    2. Re:Android Intents by ToasterMonkey · · Score: 4, Funny

      I would argue this is not a new idea. The same basic concept exists in Android as Intents.

      Windows is so stupidly far ahead of Android and Linux when it comes to sharing rich data between applications, you'd have to have your head deep up your arse to not know that, if you knew anything about this topic.

      By "same basic concept" we could also include "open with X" menu entries or registering file types with applications, attaching an 'open' verb to regular files. None of these are the same, and "the basic concept" probably existed before you were born if you want to be that generic.

  3. What, it took over a decade for this? by izomiac · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well, this sounds almost exactly like BeOS's Negotiated Drag and Drop. I remember Leo Laporte doing an episode of (IIRC) The Screensavers where he showed the BeOS, and demonstrated this by dragging an unsaved piece of data between three or four applications and manipulating it in each. But, all I could easily find was this classic scene from a demo video demonstrating the concept between Tracker (the desktop application) and the Book application.

  4. "short" by FrootLoops · · Score: 4, Informative

    The "short (video) explanation" is an hour long. If you just want some demos, they start at about 10:33, 12:19, 14:14, and 17:44.