This is a showcase review for our sponsors at The Code Project. These reviews are intended to provide you with information on products and services that we consider useful and of value to developers.
Introduction
With the increasing popularity of mobile devices, it is natural that demand for mobile applications rises. Now with mobile computers becoming continuously more and more affordable, the companies want us � the developers � to create software for these devices that would allow them to carry their agenda around.
The tricky part of developing a mobile application is that every company has different requirements, because every company is running generally a different business. There are aspects, however, that these applications have in common:
- They contain a user interface to gather input from the user
- They contain algorithms which take the input and alter the underlying data
- They connect to the database for data manipulation
And these aspects are also part of Resco MobileApp Developer Pack.
What is Resco MobileApp Developer Pack?
Figure 1 shows the contents of Resco MobileApp Developer Pack. It contains:
- Suite of Visual Studio controls called MobileForms Toolkit
- Sample mobile applications called Enterprise Samples
Figure 1: MobileApp Developer Pack contents
MobileForms Toolkit is a set of Visual Studio controls that were created specifically for mobile devices. They are an important part of every business application. They feature:
- Easy customization using either Visual Studio designer or an external designer tool
- Intuitive UI based on standard Windows Mobile look
- Ability to fetch data from a mobile database
- Good performance even on mobile devices with limited memory and processor capabilities
You can read more about MobileForms Toolkit here.
EnterpriseSamples � these robust solutions take the advantage of MobileForms Toolkit and show how they can be used to build up a fully functional, professional looking and useful mobile business application. All the Samples are written in either C# .NET or Visual Basic .NET and target .NET Compact Framework. They are provided together with well-commented source code and thus allow you to skip over building the basics and move directly to fulfilling your customer's requirements. Following, you can find more detailed information about two samples that show a typical usage of mobile devices in an enterprise environment.
MobileSales Enterprise Sample
This Sample is a Sales Force Automation application that allows you to browse the database of your customers, orders, products and business visits. Built atop MobileForms Toolkit controls, it provides a simple yet flexible way of customization. The SQL CE database that MobileSales uses can be easily synchronized with a SQL server by means of Merge Replication.
Figure 2: MobileSales DevKit
A version optimized for the Symbol MC70 mobile device is also provided. One can use the MC70's bar code scanner to search the product database.
MobileSurvey Enterprise Sample
Sending an employee out in the field to collect the data is a common practice of every business. MobileSurvey Enterprise Sample is a solution that allows one to take the mobile device out in the field, fill in the prepared form and send it to the server for processing. MobileSurvey Enterprise Sample contains 3 modules:
- MobileSurvey Manager
- MobileSurvey Client
- MobileSurvey WebService
- MobileSurvey Manager is a desktop application that allows you to design the form, prepare questions for it and set the type of answers for the questions.
- MobileSurvey Client is a mobile device application that presents the form to the user, allows him to fill in the answers and sends them to the server for processing.
- MobileSurvey WebService is a server application that accepts the filled-in forms. The following scheme shows the whole MobileSurvey workflow:
How Does the MobileApp Developer Pack Help You?
- Speeds up your development process dramatically by providing a lot of work in the form of Visual Studio controls
- Includes complete professional mobile device applications with well-commented source code
- Applications provide the typical Windows Mobile look and feel and reach good performance even on devices with limited memory and processor capabilities
About Resco.net
Resco is a leading developer company in creating software for mobile devices running the Microsoft Windows Mobile OS. Beginning with development of end-user applications which are currently the best selling, Resco moved on to creating developer libraries, taking the experience along. Foundation of Developer Tools division at Resco and its effort has now resulted in rich variety of developer tools, controls, libraries, samples as well as model applications that Resco offers.
For more information about Resco MobileApp Developer Pack, you can visit here.
For information about MobileForms Toolkit, please visit here.
For information about Resco, visit here.
