'NET Compact Framework

1
.NET Compact Framework

• Per Ahlberg

2
Agenda

• .NET CF vs .NET Framework
• Major Areas
• Base Classes
• Drawing/Forms
• Data/XML
• Web Services
• Application Development
• Emulation and deployment
• Communication and data
• Security

3
Agenda

• .NET CF vs .NET Framework
• Major Areas
• Base Classes
• Drawing/Forms
• Data/XML
• Web Services
• Application Development
• Emulation and deployment
• Communication and data
• Security

4
The Mobile Device Universe
Clients
User Experiences Solutions
Tools
XML Web Services
Authentication SMS Voice CallsSubscriber
DB MMS Data CallsPersonalization Billing etc
Infrastructure Servers, e.g. Network Operators
5
A large number of devices
6
Application models for devices
Visual Studio.NET 2003
.NET Framework
code
web pages
webapplications
client-sideapplications
Mobile Web Browser
.NET CompactFramework
7
Making Applications Mobile

• Mobility involves more than just being wireless
• Truly mobile applications go anywhere
• Data useful when offline
• State of connectedness transparent to user and/or
  application

8
.NET CF design goals

• Compatibility
• Strict compatibility with .NET Framework
• Subset functionality
• Subsetting for devices
• Give the developer a known target
• Enable skills andcode transfer
• Size/functionality
• Provide critical mass needed for real apps

.NET Framework
.NET Compact Framework
9
.NET Compact Framework

• Lightweight version of .NET Framework
• Designed for resource-constrained devices
• Compatible with VS.NET, C, VB.NET
• Runs applications securely on-device
• High performance JIT compiler
• Guarantees robustness and security
• Highly interactive, offline, and networked
  experiences
• Makes it easy to consume web services
• Tuned for size and performance

10
.NET Framework
11
.NET Compact Framework
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
12
.NET CLR Common Features

• Verifiable type safe execution
• No uninitialized variables, unsafe casts, bad
  array indexing, bad pointer math
• Garbage Collection
• No ref-counting, no leaks
• JIT compilation
• Error handling with exceptions
• Common type system
• Call, inherit, and source-level debug across
  different languages

13
.NET CF CLR Differences

• COM Interop
• Good support for calling native DLLs
• Support for calling a COM object through DLL
  wrappers
• No support for writing a COM / ActiveX object in
  C or Visual Basic
• No install-time JIT (nGen)
• No remoting
• Client web services is fully supported
• No generic serialization
• Datasets can be serialized to XML
• Subsets of other areas of functionality

14
Agenda

• .NET CF vs .NET Framework
• Major Areas
• Base Classes
• Drawing/Forms
• Data/XML
• Web Services
• Application Development
• Emulation and deployment
• Communication and data
• Security

15
Basic Data Types

• Base data types are the same as the desktop
• Formatting
• StringBuilder
• Arrays
• Value types (Int16, Int32, Int64, UInt16, etc)
• Floats and doubles
• Collections
• Classes for storing sets of objects
• Arraylists and Hashtables

16
Networking

• Sockets
• Synchronous and asynchronous
• Multiple protocols
• Streams
• Built on top of sockets
• Synchronous andasynchronous
• HTTP request and response
• Use stream model

Applications
.NET Compact Framework
Web Services
HTTP Request/Response, Network Stream
Sockets
Common Language Runtime
17
Threading

• Applications start with an initial thread
• Applications can start new threads
• Using threads
• Responsive UI
• Program function segregation
• Thread synchronization primitives

18
Globalization

• Culture-correct string comparison
• Calendar math
• DateTime and numeric formatting /parsing
• External data
• Encodings
• .NET CF CLR is fully globalized

19
Windows Forms Support

• Layout
• Manual positioning
• Drawing
• Polygons, lines, arcs, ellipses, rectangles
• JPEG, BMP images
• Text and images
• TrueType bitmap fonts
• Most desktop controls
• Designer support

20
Supported Controls

• Supported controls

MainMenu NumericUpDown Panel PictureBox ProgressBa
r RadioButton

• Button
• CheckBox
• ComboBox
• ContextMenu
• DataGrid
• DomainUpDown
• FileOpenDialog

HScrollBar ImageList Label ListBox ListView FileSa
veDialog
StatusBar TabControl TextBox Timer ToolBar TreeVie
w VScrollBar

• Unsupported controls

GroupBox
RichTextBox
NotificationBubble Print Controls

• Unsupported controls not available in CE

HelpProvider LinkLabel NotifyIcon
ToolTip Splitter FontDialog
CheckedListBox ColorDialog ErrorProvider
21
Data

• ADO.NET
• DataSet
• Databound controls
• Managed providers
• SQL Server for Windows CE
• SQL Server (remote connection)

22
XML

• XmlTextReader and XmlTextWriter
• Forward-only parsers of XML data
• Better performance, no in-memory caching
• Low memory requirements
• XmlDocument
• Parse entire document
• In memory traversal
• Higher memory requirements more functionality

23
Unsupported XML Classes

• XmlDataDocument
• Relational and hierarchical views of XML
• XPath
• Query over unstructured XML data
• XSLT
• Transform XML data to other forms
• XML Validation
• Verifies correctness of XML document

24
Web Services For Devices

• Web Services
• Synchronous and asynchronous invocation
• HTTP/SOAP
• Support calling into web services
• Why?
• Rich local UI
• Aggregate services
• Cache data locally for offline use
• Important considerations
• Bandwidth (How much? 802.11 or WWAN?)
• Use suitable subset of types

25
Agenda

• .NET CF vs .NET Framework
• Major Areas
• Base Classes
• Drawing/Forms
• Data/XML
• Web Services
• Application Development
• Deployment and emulation
• Communication and data
• Security

26
Application Deployment

• Application install uses Windows CE installer
  technology
• Visual Studio will auto-generate simple CAB files
  for device Installer
• Include application and dependant references
• Does not include the runtime or SQL-CE
• Application Install will check for the runtime
  when installing
• Temporary files are kept if user wants to
  customize the cab file contents

27
Framework Size

• Framework size (RAM or ROM)
• 1.5 MB
• Running RAM needs
• 0.5 MB (depends on app)
• Typical application sizes
• 5 - 100 KB
• Apps often smaller due to use of platform
  features in the framework

28
Emulation

• Robust, accurate device emulation
• Runs Windows CE/PocketPC 2002 operating system
  on Windows XP
• Emulates localized versions of the operating
  system
• Can add images created in Platform Builder
• Configurable in Device Settings in Tools Options
• Configure RAM availability
• Map PC hardware to the emulator

29
Active Sync Replication
Windows Forms
Service
ADO.NET
ADO.NET
ActiveSync File Replication
DataSet XML
DataSet XML
.NET Compact Framework
.NET Framework

• Cons
• Bound to single PC for data transfer
• No synchronization model works best with flood
  synchronizing

• Pros
• Good for casually connected applications
• Back end agnostic
• Local caching for offline

30
Direct Database Access
Windows Forms
SQL Server
ADO.NET Data Provider
ADO.NET
.NET Compact Framework
Windows Server

• Cons
• Must be constantly connected
• Not scalable on server classic two tier design
• No synchronization model for typical dynamic data

• Pros
• Rich query into a large data source
• Access to entire data source device queries for
  and uses whats relevant

31
Web Service Application
Windows Forms
ASP.NET
XML Web Service
ADO.NET
WS Client
Database
Local Data
.NET Framework
.NET Compact Framework

• Cons
• Complex state and synchronization logic gets
  unwieldy
• Carries bulk of XML data transfer

• Pros
• Well deployed infrastructure (HTTP)
• Information cached Synchronization logicon
  server
• Device communicates directly with sourceno PC
  bridge

32
SQL CE With Replication
Windows Forms
SQL Server
ADO.NET
SQL CE Replication (HTTP)
SQL CE
.NET Compact Framework
Windows Server

• Cons
• Server configuration required
• Engine footprint on device

• Pros
• Very robust local store
• Complex SQL querying
• Advanced/performant synchronization
• Utilizes HTTP

33
Web Service with SQL CE
Windows Forms
ASP.NET
XML Web Service
ADO.NET
WS Client
Database
SQL CE
.NET Framework
.NET Compact Framework

• Cons
• Carries bulk of XML data transfer
• Mapping of XML to SQL CE
• Footprint considerations

• Pros
• Well deployed infrastructure (HTTP)
• Information cached
• Structured storage
• Secure storage ofsensitive information

34
DataSets on Devices

• In-memory cache of a relational database
• Aggregating multiple sources
• Reading and writing XML
• Remoted between tiers with XML Web Services
• Foundation for consistent data model from server
  tiers, desktop applications and now devices

35
Data Providers

• Providers included with .NET CF
• System.Data.SqlClient
• System.Data.SqlServerCe
• Custom Data Providers
• Follow interfaces to provide connection to custom
  data sources
• Developer creates custom code translating remote
  structure to DataSet

36
Security

• While transferring data
• HTTP authentication
• Secure sockets
• No encryption for System.Data.SqlClient
• While persisting data
• SQL Server CE
• Devices have the habit of disappearing design
  for it
• No caching of passwords
• Encrypt sensitive data SQL Server CE

37
When to choose?

• Windows CE .NET
• Supports the Win32 API
• Will support .NET Compact Framework
• Consider Win32 API when
• Low-level driver code
• Operating system extensions
• Legacy code
• Combination will serve you well
• Leverage PInvoke
• http//msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dncenet/ht
  ml/choose_api.asp

38
Summary

• Leverage your knowledge Build device apps!
• Desktop framework tools
• .NET languages (C, VB .NET)
• Choose the appropriate project template
• Compile, debug, and deploy in Visual Studio .NET
  2003
• Internet
• http//msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/device
• http//gotdotnet.com/team/netcf/
• msnews.microsoft.com
• microsoft.public.dotnet.framework.compactframework

39
(No Transcript)