Web Application or client application

[Frank Luker]

Hello,

our company is developing server-client-systems for medical data collection.
We use VS 2005 / .NET 2.0 and now we want to include handheld PCs for our
system.
We decided to use Windows Mobile and the .NET CF 2.0.

After trying to implement some features we recognized that the compact
framework does not offer so much features and the controls are very poor.
For example a grid control with the possibility to show icons/images in the
cells is missing and even third party controls (e.g. Developer Express) are
rare.

So the basic and main question for us is: should we implement a .NET CF
application or shall we instead of this use the web technology by using the
Internet Explorer on the handheld PC and call ASP.NET pages.

What is the current philosophy of the developers using .NET at this point?
On a workstation PC I would prefer an own Windows application I there is
much interaction with the user and if there are some "local" tasks like file
operations. Otherwise an ASP.NET project is very smart, scalable and no
installation necessary. Any arguments for or against ASP.NET or applications
on handhelds?

Thanks for your tipps.

Best regards

 

[Jonas]

Frank Luker skrev:

Hello,

our company is developing server-client-systems for medical data collection.
We use VS 2005 / .NET 2.0 and now we want to include handheld PCs for our
system.
We decided to use Windows Mobile and the .NET CF 2.0.

After trying to implement some features we recognized that the compact
framework does not offer so much features and the controls are very poor.
For example a grid control with the possibility to show icons/images in the
cells is missing and even third party controls (e.g. Developer Express) are
rare.

So the basic and main question for us is: should we implement a .NET CF
application or shall we instead of this use the web technology by using the
Internet Explorer on the handheld PC and call ASP.NET pages.

What is the current philosophy of the developers using .NET at this point?
On a workstation PC I would prefer an own Windows application I there is
much interaction with the user and if there are some "local" tasks like file
operations. Otherwise an ASP.NET project is very smart, scalable and no
installation necessary. Any arguments for or against ASP.NET or applications
on handhelds?

Thanks for your tipps.

Best regards

Hello
My strategy is always to build applications. I don't like browsers
for handheld devices because it's more difficult to give the user
nice feedback when the system is waiting and so on. If I miss some
features in the compact framework I often built them inheriting from
Control.
/Jonas (not so good in English)

 

[CraigGRA]

Frank
We went through the same thoughts when we did our first Compact
Framework project.
We even tried a Mobile web application , but found that with GPRS /3G
coverage and data costs this was not such as great solution.
We moved our model to ocassionally connected web service based and are
much happier with the solution even though it can take a while
sometimes to build custom controls for the UI.
We do try to design the UI in mind of reduced UI capabilities (compared
to winforms) and this has been something of experience gained over time
knowing what is easy to do with standard controls.

Craig

 

[Jeremy]

The out of the box grid in CF isn't anything to call home about but you
should look at these if you haven't already

Check here
http://resco.net/developer/products.asp

and here
http://componentone.com/products.as...489&SubCategoryTypeID=0&TabMapID=99&TabID=119

 

[Frank Luker]

Thanks for your recommendation!

With the Resco grid I had bad experiences:
If you change the row height then the grid line drawing shows a bug (not
drawn properly). I had contact to their support and they gave me a new
version with the same behaviour. That makes no good impression to me...

With the ComponentOne grid I also had trouble:
After installing the mobile (comapct framework) version of the grid on my
development PC all my othe applications that already used the licensed PC
version of the grid refused to work any more. I had to completely uninstall
everything of ComponentOne and reinstall the PC version to recover my work.
So that also makes no good impression to me.

 

[Jeremy]

Do you still have the Resco grid dlls? If so what is the dll version
number?

Jeremy

 

[Frank Luker]

The first version that I used was SmatGrid version 1.1.0.4 (2006-May-16).
I do not have the version number of the grid that I got from the Resco
support after my complaint but I got it on 29th of August 2006 and I think
it was something with a 2.X.X.

Best regards
Frank

 

[Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]]

The use of Web-based applications for UI requires a reliable, low-cost data
connection. This is fine if everyone using your programmed device is in a
building with good wireless 802.11 coverage, but *very* poor if people might
be in areas which are not well-covered by the wireless network or might be
out on the road and using cellular technology to connect. Note that, even
if you *do* use Web-based stuff, it's not true that this fixes all of your
problems. Are you using any ActiveX controls? Well, they won't work on
your handheld device (they're not even compiled for the right type of
processor, let alone Windows CE rather than desktop Windows). Think that IE
on your devices is identical to the desktop? Wrong. You've just traded one
environment with some limitations, which you *can* work around by writing
your own code, for one where you really can't work around it. That's my
feeling about it, anyway. We have customers using Web-based applications on
our CE device and they seem satisfied, but in only a tiny fraction of the
cases would I do my stuff that way.

Paul T.

 

[chris-s]

It's a challenge which sorts the real programmers from the
drag-and-droppers

Chris