CF 2.0, Windows Mobile 2003, 2003SE ...

[Steve Howard]

I am in the research stage of a project that will deliver to Pocket PC. It's
a student project for my Masters degree, and as such is taking a long time
to get going as I have work and other commitments ... but that's fine as I
have time to research thoroughly before I start coding. But it also means
that evailable tools and products are evolving as I spend time gathering
information.

Originally I planed to use CF 1, but I keep seeing that CF 2 is around the
corner, and I guess it makes sense to try to use the latest tools since
this is not intended to be a production project, but it is intended to be
something that is relatively close to cutting-edge.

The one thing that I have gathered about CF 2.0 that should make my life a
little simpler is that it offers native ActiveX support (so I was told)
which means I don't have to look for 3rd paty workarounds like CFCOM.

What I have not been able to get clear answers to in my reading are the
following:-

1, Is this true that ActiveX support has been added to CF 2.0? I
specifically want to use Macromedia's Flash for some of the project, so I
was planning to embed the Flash ActiveX control.

2, DO target machines have to have *both* CF 1 and CF 2 installed? Initially
my target machines are going to be 2003 and 2003SE machines. I may get
access to a WM5 machine once they are more widely available ...

3, Am I just making life difficult for myself? Should I just sticj with CF
1?

4, If I go ahead with CF2, what sort of gotyas should I be looking out for?

5, Will there be a student license available for Studio 5 and developing
with C# + CF 2? I thought I found a free download for CF2 development, but I
cannot relocate it on MSDN ...


Thanks in advance for any and all help and comments ...

Steve

 

[Ginny Caughey [MVP]]

Steve,

I don't know about student licenses, but it wouldn't suprise me. VS 2005
Standard would be the minimum you'd need for CF 2 development. I definitely
recommend using CF 2 as it is more full featured and also more performant.
VS 2005 is also even more pleasant to use the VS 2003, and there are new
data tools for device development.

CF 2 does support using COM but the support is limited and ActiveX hosting
isn't provided out of the box. Alex Feinman shows you what your options with
CF 2 are in this webcast:
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/W...&EventCategory=5&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

Don't worry about what version of CF is preinstalled on the devices you're
targetting. You can install CF 2 along with your app.

 

[Steve Howard]

I don't know about student licenses, but it wouldn't suprise me. VS 2005
Standard would be the minimum you'd need for CF 2 development. I
definitely recommend using CF 2 as it is more full featured and also more
performant. VS 2005 is also even more pleasant to use the VS 2003, and
there are new data tools for device development.

OK I'll get looking for downloads ...

CF 2 does support using COM but the support is limited and ActiveX hosting
isn't provided out of the box. Alex Feinman shows you what your options
with CF 2 are in this webcast:
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/W...&EventCategory=5&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

Thanks, that's useful. I don't understand it yet, but I am sure it will be
helpful

Don't worry about what version of CF is preinstalled on the devices you're
targetting. You can install CF 2 along with your app.

Good to know. Thanks!


Steve