NET Compact Framework 3.5 Data Driven Applications

484 Pages·2010·6.853 MB·English

by  Edmund Zehoo

.NET Compact Framework 3.5
Data-Driven Applications
Build robust and feature-rich mobile data-driven
applications with the help of real-world examples
Edmund Tan
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
.NET Compact Framework 3.5 Data-Driven Applications
Copyright © 2010 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written
permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in
critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of
the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold
without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, Packt Publishing,
nor its dealers or distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to
be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
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companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals.
However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: April 2010
Production Reference: 1220410
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
32 Lincoln Road
Olton
Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.
ISBN 978-1-849690-10-2
www.packtpub.com
Cover Image by Vinayak Chittar ([email protected])
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Credits
Author Editorial Team Leader
Edmund Tan Gagandeep Singh
Reviewer Project Team Leader
Greg Yap Lata Basantani
Acquisition Editor Project Coordinator
David Barnes Srimoyee Ghoshal
Development Editor Proofreader
Rakesh Shejwal Sandra Hopper
Technical Editors Graphics
Neha Damle Geetanjali Sawant
Rukhsana Khambatta
Production Coordinator
Shantanu Zagade
Copy Editor
Sanchari Mukherjee
Cover Work
Shantanu Zagade
Indexer
Monica Ajmera Mehta
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About the Author
Edmund Tan is the CTO and co-founder of a leading e-forms and workflow
solution vendor based in Singapore. He holds more than eight years of experience
building performance-critical .NET e-forms and workflow solutions for smart
devices on top of Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server databases for large companies
and governmental institutions located in Singapore and Malaysia. Edmund is also
a regular public speaker at various conferences held in Singapore and Malaysia on
the topic of on-the-go BPM (Business Process Management) hosted on smart device
technologies. During his free time, Edmund works on trying to create machines
capable of emulating human thought.
My first and heartfelt word of thanks goes out to David Barnes
without whom this book would not have been possible at all. I also
thank James Lumsden for giving my e-mail a chance, Rakesh Shejwal
and Greg, my long-time collaborator, for their always insightful
edits, Srimoyee Ghoshal for keeping me on schedule, Lata Basantani,
as well as everyone else involved in this book at Packt.

I extend my gratitude to my parents, Laumee and Obagi, for their
undying love and support, my aunt Laumar for instilling the
bookworm in me, my wife Shen for keeping the beverages flowing,
my kid Sophie simply for being the pride of my life, and, last but not
least, my brother Edwin for his jokes during the really, really late
hours of the night.
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About the Reviewer
Greg Yap is a tech-savvy person who's always interested in the latest technology.
He has worked on .NET since its first release. He has experience in developing
software for small, medium, and enterprise-sized companies around the world
and has worked on Microsoft technologies for a variety of platforms including
the .NET Compact Framework. He is also well versed in the C# and VB.NET
programming languages.
I would like to thank my family, especially my understanding wife
Jennie who's given me all the support and time I needed to review
this great book. To my two kids—thank you! I'm glad that both of
you have shown the patience I knew you would. My thanks also go
out to my friend Edmund for having considered me as the technical
reviewer for this book—I owe you a coffee! Last but not the least, I
would like to thank Srimoyee Ghoshal for always being there to keep
me on time and the remaining Packt Publishing team for giving me
the opportunity to review this book.
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Table of Contents
Preface 1
Chapter 1: CRMLive.NET: An Overview 9
Tomorrow Inc. 10
The mobile sales force application 10
The mobile dashboard application 11
The mobile support case application 12
Data flow in CRMLive.NET 12
Deciding on the type of mobile application 13
Thin clients 13
Thick clients 14
Smart clients 14
Messaging 15
A brief summary 15
Defining the mobile sales force application 16
Capturing lead, opportunity, and customer information 17
Mobile screen design 18
Creating reusable controls 19
Maintaining global lists 19
Data retrieval and manipulation on the mobile device 20
Data transfer between multiple mobile devices 20
Task management 20
Full-text search functionality 21
Integrating with Windows Mobile and the hardware 22
Detect incoming phone calls and SMS 23
Integrating with the Windows Mobile Calendar and Contacts book 23
Data exchange using Bluetooth and IrDA 24
Capturing handwritten input 24
Data synchronization 25
Dual database support 25
Application maintenance and upgrades 25
Table of Contents
Defining the mobile dashboard application 25
Using stateless web services as a data source 26
Rendering the dashboard 27
Road show revenue 27
Total monthly sales 28
Sales for last three months 28
Defining the mobile support case application 28
Building a messaging backbone with MSMQ 29
Summary 30
Chapter 2: Building the Data Tier 31
Designing the data tier 31
SQL Server CE 3.5 versus Oracle Lite 10g 32
Connecting the Windows Mobile emulator to ActiveSync 33
Setting up SQL Server Compact 3.5 35
Installing SQL Server CE on the development machine 35
Installing SQL Server CE on the Pocket PC device. 36
Setting up Oracle Lite 10g 37
Installing Oracle Lite 10g on the development machine 37
Installing Oracle Lite 10g on the Pocket PC device 38
Building the data tier 38
Building the CRMLiveFramework project 39
Defining the IDataLibPlugin interface 40
Building the Plugin Manager UI 43
An overview 44
Implementing the PluginCollection class 46
Implementing the PluginManager class 46
Creating the SalesForceApp project 50
Building the ConfigurePlugin form 50
Building the PluginsSetup form 54
Testing what you've built so far 58
Building the database plugins 59
Implementing the SQL Server CE Plugin 60
Storing DDL in the resource file 60
Building the plugin class 63
Connecting to SQL Server CE 64
Programmatically creating the SQL Server CE database 65
Testing what you've done so far 67
Browsing the SQL Server CE database with Query Analyzer 68
Retrieving data from SQL Server CE 70
Data manipulation in SQL Server CE 71
Dealing with GUID values in SQL Server CE 74
Implementing the Oracle Lite plugin 75
Storing DDL in the resource file 75
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Table of Contents
Building the plugin class 77
Connecting to Oracle Lite 77
Programmatically creating the Oracle Lite database 78
Browsing the Oracle Lite database with Msql 80
Retrieving data from Oracle Lite 81
Data manipulation in Oracle Lite 81
Dealing with GUID values in Oracle Lite 84
Summary 85
Chapter 3: Building the Mobile Sales Force Module 87
A brief walkthrough of what you will be building 88
Building a form navigation class 94
Building the main menu 96
Using Main() as the startup object 98
Creating the business objects to encapsulate your DataSets 100
Validating data in your business objects 108
Building the AccountViewer form 109
Data binding .NET controls to your business objects 111
Launching the AccountViewer form 111
Testing the AccountViewer form 114
Building the Tasks list 114
Populating the Tasks Datagrid control 115
Building the TaskDetailViewer form 116
Launching the TaskDetailViewer form 119
Testing the tasks list 120
Handling file attachments 120
Building a file manager class 121
Building the FileUpload user control 123
Building the FileDetailViewer form 126
Testing file upload functionality 128
Custom formatting and display in list controls 129
Building a collection sorter using the IComparer interface 130
Custom formatting and display in the list control 131
Using the History list control 135
Testing the History list control 136
Building the ProductList control 136
Using XML DOM to store and retrieve product selection 139
Using the ProductList control 141
Testing the ProductList control 142
Building a paged listing of accounts 142
Paging in SQL Server CE 143
Paging in Oracle Lite 146
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