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I read and write a lot on Stack Overflow about WinRT and Metro UI. I noticed that each of these technologies have their own tag: and .

It seems that these tags are used nearly synonymously. I asked myself if it would be a good idea to remap these tags. Currently most questions that are tagged with concern specific problems of WinRT under Windows 8.

I ask me, for what should the tag be for?

  • All what is designed in metro style like Win8/RT, WinPhone and tons of websites? - I think there are already more specific tags for this.
  • Or should this tag be a tag like and ?

Another point is that every WinRT App currently comes with Metro UI. Of course, WinRT is more like the back-end or logic, and the Metro UI is only the front end.

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"every WinRT App currently comes with metro ui" Not really. –  BoltClock's a Unicorn May 8 '12 at 12:25
It seems to me that WinRT and Metro UI are synonyms like .NET and WinForms are synonyms. Which is to say, they're not. –  Cody Gray May 8 '12 at 12:27
@BoltClock's a Unicorn: not? The only exclusion I've curently mind is a background App (these ones are rare). Can you give an example on what apps you think? –  Jan K. May 8 '12 at 12:27
Even if that was the only exclusion, Jan, that would still be enough to warrant the distinction. ASP.NET and WebForms were nearly synonymous for years, but technically distinct - and now considerably less connected. –  Shogging through the snow May 8 '12 at 15:51

1 Answer 1

up vote 10 down vote accepted

WinRT is essentially the nextgen of win32. It consists of a number of libraries that stand between your application and the operating system.

Metro is the new UI classes/styles used in WP7 apps and, in future, Win8 apps.

As Metro exists now on WP7, but WinRT does not, you can see that "Metro" does not have a dependency on WinRT. Metro UI != WinRT. Whether this changes in future, we'll see.

WinRT can be targeted by C++/CLI, C# and other .NET languages, and javascript. That means you can write a HTML5 application that uses javascript to call into the WinRT libraries. Therefore WinRT does not imply a Metro UI.

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