Book Image

.NET Compact Framework 3.5 Data Driven Applications

By : Edmund Tan
Book Image

.NET Compact Framework 3.5 Data Driven Applications

By: Edmund Tan

Overview of this book

<p>The new .NET CF 3.5 framework provides enterprise application developers with a whole arsenal of possibilities at their disposal, but without proper guidance on developing performance-critical enterprise applications, it is easy to make the wrong design and technology decisions.<br /><br />This book guides you to build each part of a robust enterprise application by illustrating the .NET CF 3.5 framework with the help of real-world business applications. It will not only help you to master basic .NET CF skills, but also outlines the best methods, techniques, and tools available to create high-impact and performance-critical data-driven enterprise mobile applications. It provides a solid set of guidelines to aid .NET CF developers to understand how best to apply the features of the .NET CF 3.5 framework.<br /><br />The bulk of the book illustrates the basic concepts of .NET Compact 3.5 Framework programming by walking the reader through 3 different kinds of mobile applications:</p> <ul> <li>A thick-client mobile sales-force application</li> <li>A thin-client mobile dashboard and reporting application</li> <li>A customer support case management application</li> </ul> <p><br />Both the SQL Server Lite and Oracle Lite mobile databases are covered in detail, from data access to data synchronization. The book explains how device features such as Bluetooth, SMS, telephony, Infrared, and Windows Contacts can be accessed via .NET CF in a real-world example, namely the mobile sales-force application. It also explains.NET CF's GDI+ features that can be used to create rich charts and reports. You learn to synchronize the mobile application with remote datasources and communicate via web services and WCF services. The book outlines performance optimization and memory management techniques on the mobile platform. It also outlines the tools and techniques available for testing, performance-tuning, deploying and debugging .NET CF enterprise applications (including Power Toys for .NET Compact Framework 3.5 from Microsoft).</p>

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.NET Compact Framework 3.5 Data Driven Applications
Edmund Tan
Apr, 2010 | 484 pages
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Table of Contents (18 chapters)
.NET Compact Framework 3.5 Data-Driven Applications
.NET Compact Framework 3.5 Data-Driven Applications
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewer
About the Reviewer
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
CRMLive.NET: An Overview
CRMLive.NET: An Overview
Tomorrow Inc.
Deciding on the type of mobile application
Defining the mobile sales force application
Defining the mobile dashboard application
Defining the mobile support case application
Summary
2
Building the Data Tier
Building the Data Tier
Designing the data tier
Connecting the Windows Mobile emulator to ActiveSync
Setting up SQL Server Compact 3.5
Setting up Oracle Lite 10g
Building the data tier
Building the CRMLiveFramework project
Building the Plugin Manager UI
Building the database plugins
Summary
3
Building the Mobile Sales Force Module
Building the Mobile Sales Force Module
A brief walkthrough of what you will be building
Building a form navigation class
Building the main menu
Creating the business objects to encapsulate your DataSets
Building the AccountViewer form
Building the Tasks list
Handling file attachments
Custom formatting and display in list controls
Building the ProductList control
Building a paged listing of accounts
Summary
4
Building Search Functionality
Building Search Functionality
A brief walk-through of parameterized search
Building the parameterized search feature
A brief walk-through of full-text search
Building the full-text search feature
Summary
5
Building Integrated Services
Building Integrated Services
Sending SMS and e-mail from your application
Intercepting incoming SMS
Placing phone calls from your application
Detecting incoming phone calls
Populating the History tab in the sales force application
Synchronizing with Windows Mobile Contacts
Synchronizing with Windows Mobile Tasks
Sharing an account between two devices
Capturing handwritten input using the Smart Device Framework
Summary
6
Data Synchronization
Data Synchronization
Overview of the different data synchronization methods available for Microsoft SQL Server CE
Overview of the different data synchronization methods available for Oracle Lite
A quick comparison between the various Synchronization frameworks
Using Microsoft Synchronization Services
Using Oracle Mobile Server
Synchronizing files with the server
Creating network-aware synchronization modules
Summary
7
Optimizing for Performance
Optimizing for Performance
Measuring performance
Optimizing database performance
Optimizing data transfer performance
Managing better code
The .NET Compact Framework garbage collector
Summary
8
Securing the Application
Securing the Application
Encrypting the database
Authenticating the sales force application
Encrypting data for inter-device transmission using AES
Summary
9
Globalization
Globalization
Supporting double-byte languages
Designing culture-sensitive forms
Retrieving culture information
Summary
10
Building the Dashboard
Building the Dashboard
An overview of the dashboard
Creating the web service
Creating the dashboard smart client
Summary
11
Building the Support Case System
Building the Support Case System
Introduction to MSMQ and the support case system
Setting up MSMQ on your mobile device
Writing your first MSMQ application
Setting up MSMQ on your server
Sending a message from the server to a remote mobile device
Sending a message from the mobile device to the server
Summary
12
Testing and Debugging
Testing and Debugging
Overview of Power Toys for .NET CF 3.5
Using the Remote Performance Monitor and GC Heap Viewer tool
Using the CLR Profiler tool
Using the App Configuration tool
Using the ServiceModel Metadata tool
Using the Remote Logging Configuration tool
Using the Network Log Viewer tool
Summary
13
Packaging and Deployment
Packaging and Deployment
Deploying your solution as a CAB file
Deploying your solution as an MSI file
Creating an automated update service
Summary

Retrieving culture information

The .NET Compact Framework platform intrinsically handles all date, time, numbers, and string formatting whenever the mobile user changes the current culture of the device. However, there might be cases when your code needs to know the current culture of the device. For example, currency conversion is something the platform does not do for you automatically. You might wish to find out what the default currency of the mobile device is set to and use that to automatically calculate and display its equivalent value in US dollars.

The following code snippet allows you to retrieve the current culture of the mobile device. Using the CultureInfo object, you can query a rich set of information about the language, date/time format, numerical format, and currency of the mobile device. 

using System.Globalization;
.
.
.
CultureInfo _culture = CultureInfo.CurrentCulture;

string _summary;
_summary = "Culture: " + _culture.EnglishName + "\r\n";
_summary += "Date: " ...
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