Developing Pocket PC Applications In Visual Studio.NET : Page 5

Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET 2003 ships with a new project template called "Smart Device Application," which lets you target the .NET Compact Framework to build PocketPC applications in almost exactly the same way you build Windows Forms applications.

by Wei-Meng Lee

Jan 17, 2003

Page 5 of 5

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Figure 16. Select the built-in emulator for a fast, convenient way to test your application.

Testing the Application
You can test your application in two ways: using an emulator, or using a real device. It's faster to test using the built-in Pocket PC 2002 emulator (see Figure 16); however, despite the speed and convenience of testing on the emulator, you should test your application on a real device before you deploy it. To do that, connect your Pocket PC device to your computer via ActiveSync. Testing on real devices can reveal usability problems that you cannot easily anticipate using emulators alone.


Figure 17. Copying the .NET Compact Framework to the emulator

When you use the emulator for the first time (or after a hard reset), Visual Studio .NET copies the .NET Compact Framework to the emulator (see Figure 17).

To sum up, developing Pocket PC applications using the .NET CF is quite similar to developing a desktop application. In fact, that's the strength of the .NET CF—developers can leverage their existing skill sets and achieve quick success programming for mobile devices.

Wei-Meng Lee is a Microsoft .NET MVP and co-founder of Active Developer, a technology company specializing in hands-on training on the latest technologies. He is an established developer and trainer specializing in .NET and wireless technologies. He speaks and writes frequently on topics ranging from .NET to Mac OS X. He is the author of "Windows XP Unwired" (OReilly & Associates) and is currently working on "Programming the .NET Compact Framework," also from OReilly. He can be reached at weimeng@activedevelop.com.