I just ran a little experiment and ran an HTA app under debugger (by adding //X as the arguments to MSHTA.exe). In the app version string it reports Trident 6.0 (a.k.a. IE 10) as the rendering engine. This is interesting, because I think they could have chosen to run HTA apps in compatibility mode with IE 8 (which shipped with the last OS) but they continued to move MSHTA to use the latest IE engine, like they alway have. This means local HTA apps have CSS3 and other HTML5 enhancements.
I'd like to see if MSHTA.exe ships on Windows RT (WOA / Windows on ARM). If it does this might help fill the gap between native desktop apps for power users that can't run as metro apps, like tabbed file explorer (i.e. Directory Opus / Cubic Explorer). Instead of native code Windows RT might run 'script apps' like PowerShell and HTA.
- I used an ancient train simulator utility as my sample (after you click the initial error it shows the current folder and a file list, and it is blazing fast).
- Create a .cmd script that contains 'mshta.exe sra.htm //X' and it will launch the app and immediately prompt to attach a javascript debugger. (Thanks for this tip.)
The next step is to try to combine this with modern Metro-ish CSS template (thanks code 52).
I'd like to see if a few js libraries work in a Windows 8 HTA. Rx.js, jQuery (or alternate DOM selection and ajax wrapper), and a modern js templating library like JSRender.
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