Developing International Applications for Mobile Devices with 'NET

1
Developing International Applications for Mobile
Devices with .NET

• Achim Ruopp
• International Program Manager
• Microsoft Corporation

2
Definitions

• globalization
• The process of designing and implementing a
  product and/or content (including text and
  non-text elements) so that it can accommodate any
  local market (locale).
• localizability
• The ability of a product and/or content
  (including text and non-text elements) to be
  adapted for any local market (locale).
• localization
• The process of adapting a product and/or content
  (including text and non-text elements) to meet
  the language, cultural, and political
  expectations and/or requirements of a specific
  local market (locale).

3
Agenda

• focus on differences to desktop application
  development with .NET and how to deal with them
• ASP.NET Mobile Controls
• introduction
• globalization
• localizability and localization
• .NET Compact Framework
• introduction
• globalization
• localizability and localization
• Windows CE .NET 4.1
• customizing globalization support
• multi-lingual user interface support
• References

4
.NET Application Models for Devices
Visual Studio.NET
.NET Framework
code
web pages
webapplications
client-sideapplications
Mobile Web Browser
.NET CompactFramework
5
ASP.NET Mobile Controls - Overview

• set of ASP.NET controls in Visual Studio .NET
  2003 to create mobile web applications
• for Visual Studio .NET 2002 known as Mobile
  Internet Toolkit
• broad support for connected devices with browsers
  for
• HTML
• xHTML (Basic and Mobile Profile)
• WML (Wireless Markup Language)
• cHTML (compact HTML)
• adaptive rendering

6
ASP.NET Mobile Controls Overview

• extensible and customizable controls and adapters
• state management application and session state
• security through mobile forms authentication
• a runtime and a designer
• emulator support

7
ASP.NET Mobile Controls Object Model
8
ASP.NET Mobile Controls - Globalization

• internal character encoding is Unicode
• support for character set conversion to and from
  device character sets
• all controls are globalized
• display of localized control strings and
  exceptions requires
• installation of a language pack (available in 21
  languages)
• and/or
• Windows Server 2003 in the desired language

9
ASP.NET Mobile Controls - Globalization

• how to make your application culture-aware
• CultureInfo ci CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture
  (Request.UserLanguages0)
• System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCultu
  re ci
• System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICul
  ture ci
• handling device character sets
• configure in web.config section ltglobalization/gt
• Content-TypecharsetXXX overrides setting in
  configuration for request encoding
• how to use Accept-Charset
• Response.ContentEncoding Encoding.GetEncoding(Re
  quest.Headers"Accept-Charset".ToString())

10
ASP.NET Mobile Controls - Localization

• how to localize applications
• add resource files (.RESX) to your project
• create a resource manager in Application_Start
• ResourceManager LocRM new ResourceManager("LocPr
  oject.strings", typeof(MobileWebForm1).Assembly)
• Application"rm" LocRM
• use the resource manager to load string resources
  in a form
• ResourceManager LocRM (ResourceManager)Applicati
  on"rm"
• this.Label1.Text LocRM.GetString("txtLabel1")
• alternatively persist your resource manager in
  the session state

11
ASP.NET Mobile Controls - Demo

• system requirements
• Visual Studio .NET 2003
• ASP.NET Mobile Controls Device Updates
• Openwave SDK 6.1

12
.NET Compact Framework - Overview

• lightweight version of the .NET Framework
• designed for resource-constrained devices
• online and offline
• supported by Visual Studio .NET 2003
• two available programming languages
• Visual C .NET
• Visual Basic .NET
• major areas of .NET Compact Framework
• base classes
• drawing/Windows Forms
• data/XML
• XML Web Service Client
• supported devices
• Pocket PC 2000/Pocket PC 2002/Pocket PC Phone
  Edition
• any device based on Windows CE .NET 4.1
• soon Smartphone

13
.NET Compact Framework Class Subset
System.Web
System.WinForms
Services
UI
Design
ComponentModel
Description
HtmlControls
Discovery
WebControls
System.Drawing
Protocols
Caching
Security
Drawing2D
Printing
Text
Configuration
SessionState
Imaging
System.Data
System.Xml
ADO.NET
SqlClient
XmlDocument
Serialization
Design
SqlServerCe
Xslt/XPath
Reader/Writers
System
Collections
IO
Configuration
Runtime
InteropServices
Security
Net
ServiceProcess
Remoting
Text
Reflection
Diagnostics
Serialization
Globalization
Resources
Threading
14
.NET Compact Framework- Globalization

• globalization support in System.Globalization
• culture support is factorized
• Pocket PC world-wide EnglishCJK
• Windows CE .NET WWECJKRest of World
• uses some data from underlying operating system
  (Windows CE)
• sort tables
• character property tables
• code page conversion tables
• CurrentCulture/CurrentUICulture are device-wide
  settings
• supports calendars based on the Gregorian
  calendar

15
.NET Compact Framework- Globalization

• character encoding
• internal character encoding is Unicode
• System.Text.Encoding supports all codepages
  provided by
• operating system
• mlang.dll
• character rendering
• fonts can be installed by application
• no complex script support (including
  bidirectional languages)
• conclusion for connected applications convert
  data to culture-invariant form before it reaches
  the device

16
.NET Compact Framework - Localization

• full support for localization like in .NET
  Framework
• class System.Resources
• support for managing multiple language resources
  in Visual Studio .NET
• no localized properties contained in the runtime
• managed exception strings are available in 10
  languages
• reduce memory requirements for distribution using
  custom .CAB files
• emulator images in different languages can be
  installed for testing

17
.NET Compact Framework - Demo

• system requirements
• Visual Studio .NET 2003
• additional localized emulator images

18
Windows CE .NET 4.1

• .NET Compact Framework 1.0 add-on downloadable
  from the web
• customizing globalization support
• locale support
• codepages
• fonts
• input methods (IME, handwriting recognition,
  keyboard layouts)
• multi-lingual user interface
• operating system resources available in 12
  languages

19
References

• ASP.NET mobile controls
• Visual Studio .NET documentation
• Microsoft websites
• http//msdn.microsoft.com/nhp/Default.asp?contenti
  d28001370frametrue
• http//www.asp.net/ (click on Mobile)
• W3C
• XHTML http//www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-basic/
• cHTML http//www.w3.org/TR/1998/NOTE-compactHTML-
  19980209/
• Open Mobile Alliance http//www.openmobileallianc
  e.org/
• B4 Building a Multi-lingual, Multi-cultural Web
  Site with the Microsoft .NET Framework (François
  Liger)

20
References

• .NET Compact Framework
• Visual Studio .NET 2003 documentation
• GotDotNet http//www.gotdotnet.com/team/netcf/
• TA1 Internationalization Features of
  Microsoft.NET (Bill Hall)
• B3 Globalization with Microsoft .NET Framework
  (François Liger)
• Windows CE .NET 4.1
• Windows CE .NET 4.1 documentation
• .NET Compact Framework 1.0 RTM download
  http//microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?Family
  Id033AFC0E-B968-42F3-9A19-B2E71040F0F0displaylan
  gen