Development Tools for PPC 2003

I'm just starting our on writing applications for the PPC2002/2003.

I'm a Delphi programmer but there is no suitable mobile deployment tools
avaiable.

The applications will involve connecting to SQL databases accross the WLAN -
what do I need to get going ?

Mark

Maarten
Mon Feb 23 15:30:37 CST 2004

Coming from Delphi the most natural choice in my opinion would be to make
use of Visual Studio.NET 2003 and develop your applications in either C# or
Visual Basic.NET. Another advantage of this approach is that your apps will
be platform independend, meaning they will run on both PocketPC 2002 and
PocketPC 2003.

A look at the different development landscapes can be found here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dncenet/html/apdvlscape.asp

--
Regards,

Maarten Struys, eMVP
PTS Software bv

www.opennetcf.org | www.dotnetfordevices.com

"Mark Stoker" <m.stoker@NOSPAMstokers.co.uk> wrote in message
news:ezuw0Ej%23DHA.3436@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
> I'm just starting our on writing applications for the PPC2002/2003.
>
> I'm a Delphi programmer but there is no suitable mobile deployment tools
> avaiable.
>
> The applications will involve connecting to SQL databases accross the
WLAN -
> what do I need to get going ?
>
> Mark
>
>

michaelw
Tue Feb 24 21:53:08 CST 2004

Hey Mark!

I'm a Delphi developer too. I was hoping Borland would generate
native ARM code at least, but they went .NET instead. I figure if I'm
going .NET, I'll move to Microsqueeze. :)

I spent a lot of time today just seeing if I could find a quick
conversion chart (not a program, which I found but which proved to
have nothing I was looking for in code either).

When I moved from BASIC to Delphi in the mid 1990s, I wrote a chart to
help me get started and help me remember the differences. It went
something like:

Basic Delphi
---------------------------------
INSTR POS
VAL StrToInt/StrToFloat
STR$ IntToStr
Type Record

That kind of thing. I kind of thought someone had probably done this
already for going from Delphi to eVC++ (or at least Delphi to C++) but
after 2 hours of deep searches on Google, I turned up nada...sigh.

It's a rather significant jump, especially when we're used to being
able to have resizable forms without much hassle, and set properties
in a property sheet editor. Just to get and set the contents of an
edit box control is a lot of coding. Makes you appreciate the stuff
Delphi does. I expect the same out of .NET when I go to that
eventually.

It's funny to me that redundant tasks that you have to do over and
over and over and never change were not better automated. However,
it's also interesting to get under the hood more.

I've been slow in coming. I'm just writing an app that toggles some
registry changes and I've spent a solid 2 days on it now. GUI took me
several hours (Delphi would have been 5 minutes). However, it looks
like the EXE is going to be something tiny too :)

Feel free to email me directly if you want. Maybe we can exchange
"learnings" :)

Mike Welch
{
mikew
at
airmail
dot
net
}




"Mark Stoker" <m.stoker@NOSPAMstokers.co.uk> wrote in message news:<ezuw0Ej#DHA.3436@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl>...
> I'm just starting our on writing applications for the PPC2002/2003.
>
> I'm a Delphi programmer but there is no suitable mobile deployment tools
> avaiable.
>
> The applications will involve connecting to SQL databases accross the WLAN -
> what do I need to get going ?
>
> Mark

Brooke
Tue Feb 24 22:29:34 CST 2004

I am also a long time Delphi programmer but I made the switch to .NET
last year. I started out with VB.NET but quickly moved over to C#. I think
that C# is a great language but the dang .NET framework is slow and is
limited on functionality. After a while it dawned on me that I was doing a
large amount of P-Invoking (especially in the compact framework) to get the
programs to do kinda what I wanted. I was still not able to do everything
that I wanted so I made a concious decision to just move on to C++. My
programs now have the power and speed that I always wanted. I do not use the
MFC class but instead write old fashioned windows code. I highly recommend
"Programming Microsoft Windows CE" by Douglas Boling and "Programming
Windows, Fifth Edition" by Charles Petzold. You can also download the PGCC
compiler ( http://mifki.ru/pocketgcc/index.html ) that will run on your
PocketPC. The compiler will allow you to write and compile C++ programs on
your PDA. The programs are fast but the exe's are not as small as the ones
that are generated by eVC, but they are still pretty small

I found a number of sites that show the different data types for each
language. Here is one that may be helpful
http://www.cpcug.org/user/clemenzi/technical/Languages/DataTypes.htm

Later


"Mike Welch" <michaelw@techemail.com> wrote in message
news:b3ce3d49.0402241953.4429bf25@posting.google.com...
> Hey Mark!
>
> I'm a Delphi developer too. I was hoping Borland would generate
> native ARM code at least, but they went .NET instead. I figure if I'm
> going .NET, I'll move to Microsqueeze. :)
>
> I spent a lot of time today just seeing if I could find a quick
> conversion chart (not a program, which I found but which proved to
> have nothing I was looking for in code either).
>
> When I moved from BASIC to Delphi in the mid 1990s, I wrote a chart to
> help me get started and help me remember the differences. It went
> something like:
>
> Basic Delphi
> ---------------------------------
> INSTR POS
> VAL StrToInt/StrToFloat
> STR$ IntToStr
> Type Record
>
> That kind of thing. I kind of thought someone had probably done this
> already for going from Delphi to eVC++ (or at least Delphi to C++) but
> after 2 hours of deep searches on Google, I turned up nada...sigh.
>
> It's a rather significant jump, especially when we're used to being
> able to have resizable forms without much hassle, and set properties
> in a property sheet editor. Just to get and set the contents of an
> edit box control is a lot of coding. Makes you appreciate the stuff
> Delphi does. I expect the same out of .NET when I go to that
> eventually.
>
> It's funny to me that redundant tasks that you have to do over and
> over and over and never change were not better automated. However,
> it's also interesting to get under the hood more.
>
> I've been slow in coming. I'm just writing an app that toggles some
> registry changes and I've spent a solid 2 days on it now. GUI took me
> several hours (Delphi would have been 5 minutes). However, it looks
> like the EXE is going to be something tiny too :)
>
> Feel free to email me directly if you want. Maybe we can exchange
> "learnings" :)
>
> Mike Welch
> {
> mikew
> at
> airmail
> dot
> net
> }
>
>
>
>
> "Mark Stoker" <m.stoker@NOSPAMstokers.co.uk> wrote in message
news:<ezuw0Ej#DHA.3436@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl>...
> > I'm just starting our on writing applications for the PPC2002/2003.
> >
> > I'm a Delphi programmer but there is no suitable mobile deployment tools
> > avaiable.
> >
> > The applications will involve connecting to SQL databases accross the
WLAN -
> > what do I need to get going ?
> >
> > Mark

Mark
Wed Feb 25 05:33:54 CST 2004

Thanks for all the advice. We have developed a highly successfull Point of
Sale/Backoffice system for our stores throughout the UK. We use Sybase's SQL
Anywhere. The main reason for using PPC's was to firstly to allow our sales
people to have a quick an easy method for accessing data from the main
database whilst on the shop floor and secondly using the PPC in our
warehouse for stock logging/tracking - all this over the WLAN.

So I think something like Visual Studio would be a bit over kill for me.
I've also been looking at MobileVB which supports our devices and also
Visual CE from SYWARE which allows 'quick' creation of data entry forms over
the WLAN.

Our main POS program running developed with Delphi (7) works very well and I
don't see any point in .NETing it.

Mark

"Mike Welch" <michaelw@techemail.com> wrote in message
news:b3ce3d49.0402241953.4429bf25@posting.google.com...
> Hey Mark!
>
> I'm a Delphi developer too. I was hoping Borland would generate
> native ARM code at least, but they went .NET instead. I figure if I'm
> going .NET, I'll move to Microsqueeze. :)
>
> I spent a lot of time today just seeing if I could find a quick
> conversion chart (not a program, which I found but which proved to
> have nothing I was looking for in code either).
>
> When I moved from BASIC to Delphi in the mid 1990s, I wrote a chart to
> help me get started and help me remember the differences. It went
> something like:
>
> Basic Delphi
> ---------------------------------
> INSTR POS
> VAL StrToInt/StrToFloat
> STR$ IntToStr
> Type Record
>
> That kind of thing. I kind of thought someone had probably done this
> already for going from Delphi to eVC++ (or at least Delphi to C++) but
> after 2 hours of deep searches on Google, I turned up nada...sigh.
>
> It's a rather significant jump, especially when we're used to being
> able to have resizable forms without much hassle, and set properties
> in a property sheet editor. Just to get and set the contents of an
> edit box control is a lot of coding. Makes you appreciate the stuff
> Delphi does. I expect the same out of .NET when I go to that
> eventually.
>
> It's funny to me that redundant tasks that you have to do over and
> over and over and never change were not better automated. However,
> it's also interesting to get under the hood more.
>
> I've been slow in coming. I'm just writing an app that toggles some
> registry changes and I've spent a solid 2 days on it now. GUI took me
> several hours (Delphi would have been 5 minutes). However, it looks
> like the EXE is going to be something tiny too :)
>
> Feel free to email me directly if you want. Maybe we can exchange
> "learnings" :)
>
> Mike Welch
> {
> mikew
> at
> airmail
> dot
> net
> }
>
>
>
>
> "Mark Stoker" <m.stoker@NOSPAMstokers.co.uk> wrote in message
news:<ezuw0Ej#DHA.3436@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl>...
> > I'm just starting our on writing applications for the PPC2002/2003.
> >
> > I'm a Delphi programmer but there is no suitable mobile deployment tools
> > avaiable.
> >
> > The applications will involve connecting to SQL databases accross the
WLAN -
> > what do I need to get going ?
> >
> > Mark
>

Fred
Wed Feb 25 19:33:23 CST 2004

Hi Mark,

You might want to try dbBridge for PocketPC. It's simply the best and
fastest solution for remote data handling on PocketPC.

Have a look at:

http://www.dbbridge.com/dbbridge/dbbpocketpcmain.htm

Our customers include many companies that use dbBridge to develop solutions
very similar to your requirements, whether securely over the Internet or
WLAN environments.

You can develop using either COM- or .NET-based solutions, using eVB or eVC
for the former, and VS.NET for the latter.

dbBridge for PocketPC provides both managed and unmanaged DLLs to meet
either requirement.

Regards,
Fred Dalgleish


"Mark Stoker" <m.stoker@NOSPAMstokers.co.uk> wrote in message
news:ey3yYL5%23DHA.3232@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> Thanks for all the advice. We have developed a highly successfull Point of
> Sale/Backoffice system for our stores throughout the UK. We use Sybase's
SQL
> Anywhere. The main reason for using PPC's was to firstly to allow our
sales
> people to have a quick an easy method for accessing data from the main
> database whilst on the shop floor and secondly using the PPC in our
> warehouse for stock logging/tracking - all this over the WLAN.
>
> So I think something like Visual Studio would be a bit over kill for me.
> I've also been looking at MobileVB which supports our devices and also
> Visual CE from SYWARE which allows 'quick' creation of data entry forms
over
> the WLAN.
>
> Our main POS program running developed with Delphi (7) works very well and
I
> don't see any point in .NETing it.
>
> Mark
>
> "Mike Welch" <michaelw@techemail.com> wrote in message
> news:b3ce3d49.0402241953.4429bf25@posting.google.com...
> > Hey Mark!
> >
> > I'm a Delphi developer too. I was hoping Borland would generate
> > native ARM code at least, but they went .NET instead. I figure if I'm
> > going .NET, I'll move to Microsqueeze. :)
> >
> > I spent a lot of time today just seeing if I could find a quick
> > conversion chart (not a program, which I found but which proved to
> > have nothing I was looking for in code either).
> >
> > When I moved from BASIC to Delphi in the mid 1990s, I wrote a chart to
> > help me get started and help me remember the differences. It went
> > something like:
> >
> > Basic Delphi
> > ---------------------------------
> > INSTR POS
> > VAL StrToInt/StrToFloat
> > STR$ IntToStr
> > Type Record
> >
> > That kind of thing. I kind of thought someone had probably done this
> > already for going from Delphi to eVC++ (or at least Delphi to C++) but
> > after 2 hours of deep searches on Google, I turned up nada...sigh.
> >
> > It's a rather significant jump, especially when we're used to being
> > able to have resizable forms without much hassle, and set properties
> > in a property sheet editor. Just to get and set the contents of an
> > edit box control is a lot of coding. Makes you appreciate the stuff
> > Delphi does. I expect the same out of .NET when I go to that
> > eventually.
> >
> > It's funny to me that redundant tasks that you have to do over and
> > over and over and never change were not better automated. However,
> > it's also interesting to get under the hood more.
> >
> > I've been slow in coming. I'm just writing an app that toggles some
> > registry changes and I've spent a solid 2 days on it now. GUI took me
> > several hours (Delphi would have been 5 minutes). However, it looks
> > like the EXE is going to be something tiny too :)
> >
> > Feel free to email me directly if you want. Maybe we can exchange
> > "learnings" :)
> >
> > Mike Welch
> > {
> > mikew
> > at
> > airmail
> > dot
> > net
> > }
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > "Mark Stoker" <m.stoker@NOSPAMstokers.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:<ezuw0Ej#DHA.3436@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl>...
> > > I'm just starting our on writing applications for the PPC2002/2003.
> > >
> > > I'm a Delphi programmer but there is no suitable mobile deployment
tools
> > > avaiable.
> > >
> > > The applications will involve connecting to SQL databases accross the
> WLAN -
> > > what do I need to get going ?
> > >
> > > Mark
> >
>
>

Mark
Thu Feb 26 03:29:48 CST 2004

Fred

Thanks, I'll download a demo and give it a try. (I persume there's no
problem about running it on Windows 2000 Terminal Server ?

Mark

"Fred R. Dalgleish" <fred.dal.nospam@home.com> wrote in message
news:OrHxGiA$DHA.712@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
> Hi Mark,
>
> You might want to try dbBridge for PocketPC. It's simply the best and
> fastest solution for remote data handling on PocketPC.
>
> Have a look at:
>
> http://www.dbbridge.com/dbbridge/dbbpocketpcmain.htm
>
> Our customers include many companies that use dbBridge to develop
solutions
> very similar to your requirements, whether securely over the Internet or
> WLAN environments.
>
> You can develop using either COM- or .NET-based solutions, using eVB or
eVC
> for the former, and VS.NET for the latter.
>
> dbBridge for PocketPC provides both managed and unmanaged DLLs to meet
> either requirement.
>
> Regards,
> Fred Dalgleish
>
>
> "Mark Stoker" <m.stoker@NOSPAMstokers.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:ey3yYL5%23DHA.3232@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> > Thanks for all the advice. We have developed a highly successfull Point
of
> > Sale/Backoffice system for our stores throughout the UK. We use Sybase's
> SQL
> > Anywhere. The main reason for using PPC's was to firstly to allow our
> sales
> > people to have a quick an easy method for accessing data from the main
> > database whilst on the shop floor and secondly using the PPC in our
> > warehouse for stock logging/tracking - all this over the WLAN.
> >
> > So I think something like Visual Studio would be a bit over kill for me.
> > I've also been looking at MobileVB which supports our devices and also
> > Visual CE from SYWARE which allows 'quick' creation of data entry forms
> over
> > the WLAN.
> >
> > Our main POS program running developed with Delphi (7) works very well
and
> I
> > don't see any point in .NETing it.
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > "Mike Welch" <michaelw@techemail.com> wrote in message
> > news:b3ce3d49.0402241953.4429bf25@posting.google.com...
> > > Hey Mark!
> > >
> > > I'm a Delphi developer too. I was hoping Borland would generate
> > > native ARM code at least, but they went .NET instead. I figure if I'm
> > > going .NET, I'll move to Microsqueeze. :)
> > >
> > > I spent a lot of time today just seeing if I could find a quick
> > > conversion chart (not a program, which I found but which proved to
> > > have nothing I was looking for in code either).
> > >
> > > When I moved from BASIC to Delphi in the mid 1990s, I wrote a chart to
> > > help me get started and help me remember the differences. It went
> > > something like:
> > >
> > > Basic Delphi
> > > ---------------------------------
> > > INSTR POS
> > > VAL StrToInt/StrToFloat
> > > STR$ IntToStr
> > > Type Record
> > >
> > > That kind of thing. I kind of thought someone had probably done this
> > > already for going from Delphi to eVC++ (or at least Delphi to C++) but
> > > after 2 hours of deep searches on Google, I turned up nada...sigh.
> > >
> > > It's a rather significant jump, especially when we're used to being
> > > able to have resizable forms without much hassle, and set properties
> > > in a property sheet editor. Just to get and set the contents of an
> > > edit box control is a lot of coding. Makes you appreciate the stuff
> > > Delphi does. I expect the same out of .NET when I go to that
> > > eventually.
> > >
> > > It's funny to me that redundant tasks that you have to do over and
> > > over and over and never change were not better automated. However,
> > > it's also interesting to get under the hood more.
> > >
> > > I've been slow in coming. I'm just writing an app that toggles some
> > > registry changes and I've spent a solid 2 days on it now. GUI took me
> > > several hours (Delphi would have been 5 minutes). However, it looks
> > > like the EXE is going to be something tiny too :)
> > >
> > > Feel free to email me directly if you want. Maybe we can exchange
> > > "learnings" :)
> > >
> > > Mike Welch
> > > {
> > > mikew
> > > at
> > > airmail
> > > dot
> > > net
> > > }
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > "Mark Stoker" <m.stoker@NOSPAMstokers.co.uk> wrote in message
> > news:<ezuw0Ej#DHA.3436@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl>...
> > > > I'm just starting our on writing applications for the PPC2002/2003.
> > > >
> > > > I'm a Delphi programmer but there is no suitable mobile deployment
> tools
> > > > avaiable.
> > > >
> > > > The applications will involve connecting to SQL databases accross
the
> > WLAN -
> > > > what do I need to get going ?
> > > >
> > > > Mark
> > >
> >
> >
>
>

michaelw
Sun Feb 29 01:04:40 CST 2004

I just found this. Thanks, that's better than I had!

"Brooke" <tbrooked@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<OwV_b.22341$jl.3409@fe2.texas.rr.com>...
> I am also a long time Delphi programmer but I made the switch to .NET
> last year. I started out with VB.NET but quickly moved over to C#. I think
> that C# is a great language but the dang .NET framework is slow and is
> limited on functionality. After a while it dawned on me that I was doing a
> large amount of P-Invoking (especially in the compact framework) to get the
> programs to do kinda what I wanted. I was still not able to do everything
> that I wanted so I made a concious decision to just move on to C++. My
> programs now have the power and speed that I always wanted. I do not use the
> MFC class but instead write old fashioned windows code. I highly recommend
> "Programming Microsoft Windows CE" by Douglas Boling and "Programming
> Windows, Fifth Edition" by Charles Petzold. You can also download the PGCC
> compiler ( http://mifki.ru/pocketgcc/index.html ) that will run on your
> PocketPC. The compiler will allow you to write and compile C++ programs on
> your PDA. The programs are fast but the exe's are not as small as the ones
> that are generated by eVC, but they are still pretty small
>
> I found a number of sites that show the different data types for each
> language. Here is one that may be helpful
> http://www.cpcug.org/user/clemenzi/technical/Languages/DataTypes.htm
>
> Later
>
>