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Using Live Connect to personalize apps (Windows Store apps using JavaScript and HTML)

Live Connect features enable Windows Store apps to use info from a user's Hotmail and Microsoft SkyDrive accounts to provide a personalized and connected experience.

You can personalize your Windows Store apps to offer your users additional features and value by using the Live Software Development Kit (SDK).

Here's a video that shows how you can use Live Connect features to personalize a Windows Store app.

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For more info about how to build the app shown in the video, see How to use Windows Services in your app.

Live Connect features

The Live SDK lets your Windows Store apps use Live Connect features to provide a personalized and connected experience for your customers.

In this section, you can learn more about these Live Connect features:

Identity API features
SkyDrive API features
Hotmail API features

Identity API features

The Identity API lets you personalize your Windows Store apps, and the single sign-on feature of Windows 8 makes this personalization a seamless part of the Windows 8 user experience.

Seamless personalization

If users are not already signed in to their Microsoft account before they open your Windows Store apps, you can open the Windows sign-in control by calling the Live SDK. If they are already signed in, they won't be prompted to sign in again. After they've signed in with their Microsoft account, your Windows Store apps can access their profile info.
Profile info

Your Windows Store apps can access the profile info that users add to their Microsoft account, making your app become their app. Some of the profile info that your app can access includes the user's first name, last name, gender, and birth date.

Learn more about the Identity API

SkyDrive API features

Your users can store their photos, videos, and documents in the cloud by using SkyDrive. Your app can access them from any Windows 8 device in a couple of ways.

Your app can use the SkyDrive API in the Live SDK to access the user's photos and other files on their SkyDrive without the user's direct intervention.
Your app can use a file picker to let the user browse their SkyDrive and select a file.

Using SkyDrive, users can share content with other users, even if they don't have a Microsoft account.

The SkyDrive API makes these sharing scenarios possible from your Windows Store apps:

Photos and videos

Enable users to select, upload, and share photos and videos that they have created in your app. Apps for editing images or video can connect to the cloud and enable users to touch up their photos and make them more dramatic with filters.
Documents

Enable users to access their documents, spreadsheets, and presentations from anywhere and from any device. Your app can help users create, access, and edit their documents in SkyDrive.

Learn more about the SkyDrive API.

Hotmail API features

The Hotmail API lets your Windows Store apps interact with the contacts and calendars that users keep in their Hotmail accounts. Your app can use this info to enhance the connected experience for your users.

You can make your Windows Store apps more engaging to your customers by using the Hotmail API to access their:

Contacts

Connect your customers to other people they know who also use your app.
Calendars

Give your customers a reason to return to your app by subscribing them to your app's shared calendars or by creating events that are available to your customers on all of their devices.

Learn more about the Hotmail API.

Getting started with using Live Connect features in your Windows Store apps

These steps describe how to get ready to use Live Connect in your Windows Store apps.

Preparing your development computer to use Live Connect in your Windows Store apps

Prepare your Windows 8 development computer by:

Downloading and installing the tools and SDK for developing Windows Store apps, if they aren't already installed. This download includes Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows 8 and other tools.
Downloading and installing the Live SDK.

Preparing your accounts to use Live Connect in your Windows Store apps

Before you start developing a Windows Store app that uses Live Connect, you must have a Windows Store developer account. If you don't have one already, you can create one from your Dashboard.

Important Unlike what you might do to develop other Windows Store apps, you must configure your Windows Store apps that use Live Connect features in your Dashboard before they will be able to use any Live Connect features.

Using Live Connect in your Windows Store apps

After your development computer has the necessary software and your accounts have been set up, visit the following topics for more info about how to use Live Connect features in your Windows Store apps.

In this section

Topic	Description
Quickstart: Registering your app to use Live Connect	Before your Windows Store app can use any Live Connect features, you must first register it in your Windows Store Dashboard.
Quickstart: Personalizing your app	Your Windows Store app using JavaScript can use the Live SDK to access info from the user's Microsoft account.
How to add Windows Services to your app	You can find out here how to add Windows Services features to your Windows Store app so it can access a user's profile info, files and photos in his or her SkyDrive, and Hotmail info.
Guidelines for the Microsoft account sign-in experience	Follow these guidelines to help ensure an appropriate Microsoft account sign-in experience for users of your Windows Store app using JavaScript.