Developing for Smart Devices with Visual Basic
Visual Studio 2008 supports Visual Basic for smart device application development. It provides the tools and Framework you need to develop applications for Pocket PC, Smartphone, and other Windows CE-based platforms.
Developing Applications for Devices
You can develop two kinds of applications for devices, broadly speaking:
Mobile Web applications run on a Web server and are rendered in different formats on a range of browser-equipped mobile devices. For more information, see Creating ASP.NET Mobile Web Pages.
Windows CE-based rich-client applications run on the device itself. This approach is generally what we mean by the term "application for smart devices."
When developing for smart devices, you use the same Visual Studio environment that is used when developing desktop applications, but some differences manifest themselves when you are targeting devices. These differences include:
Additional tools for connecting to and debugging on a remote device.
Besides choosing a project type and template when creating a project, you must select a device on which to run and debug the application. This device can be a physical device connected to the development computer, a networked device, or a device emulator running on the development computer.
Classes and their members differ when developing for devices. To determine whether or not a class and its members are available, consult the documentation, use IntelliSense, or use the Visual Studio Object Browser while the project is active. For more information, see .NET Compact Framework.
Creating a Device Application
An enhanced New Project dialog box in Visual Studio 2008 replaces the Smart Device Application Wizard of Visual Studio .NET 2003. In Visual Studio 2008, you make all choices regarding project types and templates from the New Project dialog box. For more information, see How to: Create Device Applications Using Visual Basic or Visual C#.
For a list of tasks involving smart devices, see Smart Device Applications (How Do I in Visual Basic).
Data and Devices
The .NET Compact Framework provides a rich implementation of ADO.NET for devices, supporting the DataSet and DataView classes. This support includes the DataRelation and Constraint classes, and other classes that define and manipulate the DataSet. The .NET Compact Framework also includes the SQL Server .NET data provider. For more information, see Data Access and XML Support in the .NET Compact Framework and the System.Data.SqlServerCe namespace.
Networking
The .NET Compact Framework provides the networking socket-level API and higher-level abstractions, such as HTTP, DNS, and Web requests and responses. Connectivity is provided over Infrared Data Association (IrDA) and TCP/IP transports through the sockets API. For more information, see Networking and Connectivity in the .NET Compact Framework.
Developing for the Pocket PC
This table lists tasks specific to the Pocket PC.
To |
See |
|---|---|
Use a DocumentList control to handle file management tasks in your application |
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Use form elements in your application |
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Activate applications from a physical hardware button with a HardwareButton component in your application |
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Use an InputPanel component in your application |
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Select Pocket PC input methods for user input in your application |
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Send and respond to a notification in your application |
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Detect navigation keys |
Developing for the Smartphone
The .NET Compact Framework can be installed on Windows Mobile 2003 Smartphones and later.
This table lists tasks specific to Smartphone development.
To |
See |
|---|---|
Set Smartphone input methods in your application |
|
Override the back key |
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Use Smartphone menus |
See Also
Concepts
.NET Compact Framework How-to Topics
Other Resources
Pocket PC Development and the .NET Compact Framework
Smartphone Development and the .NET Compact Framework
Windows Embedded CE Development and the .NET Compact Framework