I open many programs using Windows Start Tiles, and the inconsistencies and irregularities in the color scheme, icon size, and font alignments have been bugging me for many months.
Finally, I asked the folks over on the Windows 10 subreddit for solutions and found this nifty tool that generates custom XML files for each Start Tile and is great for applying a similar theme to a batch of tiles at once.
The XML format is easy to understand, but the tool also has a GUI to help layman users.
I haven't settled on a theme and color scheme yet but I will be tinkering with custom icons and background colors a lot in the coming days to make it look like I want.
Anyway, here is the temporary application I did over my current icons to test it out!
This is the default look of the various programs I had pinned to the Start Tiles. Notice how inconsistent the icon sizes are, on top of that some tiles have different background colors despite having set a single custom accent in the Windows Personalization. The text on the medium icons is centered differently on each icon and notifications are not shown correctly on some of the icons as well.
The tool I decided upon from the subreddit recommendations was TileIconifier.
It creates and stores an XML file for each program shortcut tile in the following format: (Example is Visual Studio 2022)
We can use its GUI release to first set it up and a single theme can be moreover applied in batch to all of the programs you choose to.
Modifying the size, color variables & icons (you can import your own as well).
You can also create and store custom shortcuts using the tool which gets stored in the TileIconify directory in Start which can be especially useful for Windows Store apps that are not traditionally a .exe
Batch operations after setting up the initial XML profile for the shortcut tiles.
Finally, I asked the folks over on the Windows 10 subreddit for solutions and found this nifty tool that generates custom XML files for each Start Tile and is great for applying a similar theme to a batch of tiles at once.
The XML format is easy to understand, but the tool also has a GUI to help layman users.
I haven't settled on a theme and color scheme yet but I will be tinkering with custom icons and background colors a lot in the coming days to make it look like I want.
Anyway, here is the temporary application I did over my current icons to test it out!
This is the default look of the various programs I had pinned to the Start Tiles. Notice how inconsistent the icon sizes are, on top of that some tiles have different background colors despite having set a single custom accent in the Windows Personalization. The text on the medium icons is centered differently on each icon and notifications are not shown correctly on some of the icons as well.
The tool I decided upon from the subreddit recommendations was TileIconifier.
It creates and stores an XML file for each program shortcut tile in the following format: (Example is Visual Studio 2022)
XML:
<Application xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<VisualElements
BackgroundColor="#2D2D30"
ShowNameOnSquare150x150Logo="on"
ForegroundText="light"
Square150x150Logo="Assets\\VisualStudio.150x150.png"
Square70x70Logo="Assets\\VisualStudio.70x70.png" />
</Application>We can use its GUI release to first set it up and a single theme can be moreover applied in batch to all of the programs you choose to.
Modifying the size, color variables & icons (you can import your own as well).
You can also create and store custom shortcuts using the tool which gets stored in the TileIconify directory in Start which can be especially useful for Windows Store apps that are not traditionally a .exe
Batch operations after setting up the initial XML profile for the shortcut tiles.
Final Result
