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>
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
.NET Compact Framework 3.5 Data-Driven Applications
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
Preface

Summary


From this chapter we've learned that there are four common client models used in mobile development, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. In this book, we will build three applications that cover the two models that utilize the .NET Compact Framework—thick and smart clients:

  • The mobile sales force application is a thick-client application that allows users to key in data offline and to sync it with a remote server at a later time.

  • The mobile dashboard application is a smart-client application that will utilize stateless web services for data retrieval due to the limited availability of its Internet connection.

  • The mobile support case application demonstrates how a common messaging backbone can be built on top of the MSMQ framework to provide instant notifications to mobile devices.

Your journey through this book will also ultimately walk you through three important aspects of mobile application development:

  • Learning the various methods of data transmission between the mobile device and a remote server and between mobile devices themselves

  • Learning the various ways to integrate Windows mobile and the device itself to provide an interactive and seamless solution

  • Designing an adaptable three-tier and MVC-based solution that makes future maintenance of the application easier.

With this overview, we have enough context to begin building the application. We will start by creating the data layer for the mobile sales force application in the next chapter.