Welcome to today's live Smart Device Development Chat hosted by experts from the community! We will begin this chat in about 15 minutes. Thank you for joining us.
Mike Fosmire:
Hey folks! Thanks for coming, we'll get started with our Smart Device Development Chat in about 10 minutes
Mike Fosmire:
Hey folks! Thanks for coming, we'll get started with our Smart Device Development Chat in about 5 minutes.
Mike Fosmire:
Welcome to Smart Device Development Chat hosted by experts from the community.
Before we begin, I would like to begin by posting the chat rules and instructions:
1. This chat will last for one hour. During this hour, our Experts will respond to as many questions as they can. Please understand that there may be some questions we cannot respond to due to lack of information or because the information is not yet public.
2. We encourage you to submit questions for our Experts. To do so, type your questions in the send box, select the "Ask the Experts" box and click SEND. Questions sent directly to the Guest Chat room will not be answered by the Experts, but we encourage other community members to assist.
3. We ask that you stay on topic for the duration of the chat. This helps the Guests and Experts follow the conversation more easily. We invite you to ask off topic questions after this chat is over, but not during.
4. Please abide by the Chat Code of Conduct.
Mike Fosmire:
Can I have our experts take a moment to introduce themselves now?
Neil Cowburn:
Hi, I'm Neil Cowburn, a Principal Partner at OpenNETCF Consulting and a Device Application Developer MVP.
Mike Fosmire:
My name is Mike Fosmire, I'm an MVP Lead with the MVP Award Program and I'll be moderating today.
Mike Fosmire:
I'll let our other experts introduce themselves at their convenience.
Peter Nowak:
Hello. My name is Peter Nowak. I'm a Device Application MVP in Germany.
Mike Fosmire:
Please feel free to fire away with questions and our experts will do their best to address them.
Mike Fosmire:
Keep in mind that our experts today aren't Microsoft employees, so they may need to refrain from commenting on certain issues. :-)
Tony Whitter:
Hi! Tony Whitter, Device App Dev MVP UK/France
Rob Tiffany:
Hi, I'm Rob Tiffany and I'm a Mobility Architect here at MS
If you're just joining us, welcome to today's Smart Device Development Chat hosted by experts from the community! Your questions, comments and feedback are welcome.
Just a reminder that to post a question for our experts, please remember to check the "Ask the Experts" box.
Neil Cowburn:
Q: is it possible to get on a PPC (and with C#) the time of the computer linked wth ActiveSync
A: It is possible to do it the other way around (desktop -> device), but not from the device. You will need to use the Remote API (RAPI) to achieve this.
Neil Cowburn:
Q: I did not see anything new for IE Mobile for a long time, why?
A: I'm not a Microsoft employee, so I cannot comment on this.
Rob Tiffany:
Q: Channa asked the experts: I did not see anything new for IE Mobile for a long time, why?
A: We've got IE Mobile updates in 6.1 that include zooming and panning.
Neil Cowburn:
Q: What is the best way to read XML with iso-8859-1 encoding. The only way I found is to "patch" the encoding="iso-8859-1" with "windows-1252". Is there a better way?
A: You should not have any difficults reading iso-8859-1 encoded XML. What is the problem you are facing?
Alberto Silva:
Q: winny: Hi, I'm Paul from France, I have a question : is it possible to get on a PPC (and with C#) the time of the computer linked wth ActiveSync
A: Paul, the most usual way to get the time from a server is to have something running on the server, like a web service or a custom developed application running on the PC. OTOH, I think that with RAPI you can set the device time from the PC, but ActiveSync
Alberto Silva:
Q: winny: Hi, I'm Paul from France, I have a question : is it possible to get on a PPC (and with C#) the time of the computer linked wth ActiveSync
A: Paul, the most usual way to get the time from a server is to have something running on the server, like a web service or a custom developed application running on the PC. OTOH, I think that with RAPI you can set the device time from the PC, but ActiveSync can do it automatically
Neil Cowburn:
Q: WM 6 Standard logo requirements says spinners must be used instead of comboboxes. In WM5 Smartphone, the OS would convert comboboxes to spinners automatically. BUT WM6 Standard supports/shows comboboxes! Must we code spinners explicitly now for logo reqs?
A: If it's listed as a requirement in the logo certification guidance doc, then yes you must explicitly use spinners
Neil Cowburn:
Q: The problem is that CF XmlReader throws an exception that "iso-8859-1" encoding is not supported encoding. Same file with "patched" encoding works correctly.
A: It sounds like the actual file is not ISO-8859-1 encoded. It may well be UTF-8 or UTF-16 encoded. Check the byte order mark at the beginning of the XML document.
Peter Nowak:
Q: SK asked the experts: The problem is that CF XmlReader throws an exception that "iso-8859-1" encoding is not supported encoding. Same file with "patched" encoding works correctly.
A: You could probably skip this line. Take a look at a sample here: http://www.codeguru.com/csharp/csharp/cs_data/xml/article.php/c7141/
Tony Whitter:
Q: Hi I'm Jason from Canada. What is the best way to keep CDB sizes down, or is there an even more optimized local databasing solution for the CF?
A: the SQL Server Mobile / Compact Edition engine is in ROM on WM5 and the full client is in ROM on WM6 so depending on your platform you may have that available without having to install it - this can auto compact to release unused space
Mike Fosmire:
If you're just joining us, welcome to today's Smart Device Development Chat hosted by experts from the community! Your questions, comments and feedback are welcome.
Just a reminder that to post a question for our experts, please remember to check the "Ask the Experts" box.
Peter Nowak: Alberto Silva:
Q: SK asked the experts: The problem is that CF XmlReader throws an exception that "iso-8859-1" encoding is not supported encoding. Same file with "patched" encoding works correctly.
A: (Peter) @ SK - There is a Thread on the MSDN Forums on this topic as well. Probably some suggestions from there help you as well: http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2875608&SiteID=1
A: (Alberto) @SK: beware however that removing the informotation about the encoding or 'patching' it to another encoding may have unexpected consequences when getting some values
Tony Whitter: Rob Tiffany:
Q: Q: Hi I'm Jason from Canada. What is the best way to keep CDB sizes down, or is there an even more optimized local databasing solution for the CF?
A: (Tony) the SQL Server Mobile / Compact Edition engine is in ROM on WM5 and the full client is in ROM on WM6 so depending on your platform you may have that available without having to install it - this can auto compact to release unused space
(Rob) SQL Server Compact is only in ROM in 6/6.1 devices
Neil Cowburn:
Q: SK: Thanks, Alberto, This is why I am looking for a better solution. All the solutions I have seen so far revolve around "ignoring" the encoding. I am just surprised the CF does not handle it out of the box.
A: The .NET CF does, but only if the actual encoding of the file matches that set by the encoding attribute.
Tony Whitter: Rob Tiffany:
Q: (Tony) Rob - the SQL Server Mobile engine is in ROM in WM5 is it not?
A: (Rob) Just in 6 and the new 6.1 along with NETCF 2.0 SP2
A: (Rob) You can get NETCF 2.0 in ROM on WM5 devices running AKU 3.5
Tony Whitter: Rob Tiffany:
Q: (Tony) Rob - the SQL Server Mobile engine is in ROM in WM5 is it not?
A: (Rob) Just in 6 and the new 6.1 along with NETCF 2.0 SP2
A: (Rob) You can get NETCF 2.0 in ROM on WM5 devices running AKU 3.5
Neil Cowburn:
Q: Neil_C - Are you saying that CF does support 8859 encoding? I have debugged thru the CF code using the reflector and did not find that support, unless 8859 encoding is optionally included in different CF builds/platforms
A: I'm not finding any documentation that suggests it's not supported
Mike Fosmire:
If you're just joining us, welcome to today's Smart Device Development Chat hosted by experts from the community! Your questions, comments and feedback are welcome.
Just a reminder that to post a question for our experts, please remember to check the "Ask the Experts" box.
Peter Nowak:
Q: Neil_C - Are you saying that CF does support 8859 encoding? I have debugged thru the CF code using the reflector and did not find that support, unless 8859 encoding is optionally included in different CF builds/platforms
A: @ SK - You have to be aware, that you have actually 2 encodings: One for the XML content and one for the stream itself. By that it could be, that you have an iso encoding stated in the xml header, but the underlying stream can be UTF8.
A: @ sk: Take a look at this Thread as well: http://www.dotnet247.com/247reference/msgs/51/259714.aspx
Alberto Silva:
Q: Neil_C - Are you saying that CF does support 8859 encoding? I have debugged thru the CF code using the reflector and did not find that support, unless 8859 encoding is optionally included in different CF builds/platforms
A: @SK: you may also try to create a XML document in memory with the encoding you want to try, persist it to a XML file, then read it back again. If this works, then the problem you are facing may be Peter's sugestion, not hte encoding of the XML itself, but [the file encoding itself].
Mike Fosmire:
We've got about 15 minutes left in today's Smart Device Development Chat hosted by experts from the community. We welcome your questions, comments and feedback.
Neil Cowburn:
If you find these chats useful, please do let us know. You can email me directly at neilc@opennetcf.com
Neil Cowburn:
Q: SK asked the experts: Peter- I am loading RSS feeds using HTTP
SK asked the experts: Unfortunately I can't control the encodings, I can only "try to deal" with unsupported ones.
SK asked the experts: From what I can tell from my research, when XmlReader "reads" the encoding attribute it tries to find among its supported/installed encodings the one that it read. If it can't find it, it throws the exception and does not read further.
A: Send me an email and I will follow up with you offline.
Mike Fosmire:
We've got about 5 minutes left in today's Smart Device Development Chat hosted by experts from the community. We welcome your questions, comments and feedback.
Mike Fosmire:
Thank you for joining us today for our Smart Device Development Chat hosted by experts from the community! We're schedule to end now, but some of our experts may hang out for a few more minutes to assist. We hope that this has been a worthwhile chat session.
A special thank you to the Microsoft MVPs who came out to help!
Neil Cowburn:
We're just about done here. Thanks go to Rob, Peter, Tony, and Alberto for their help today. Also, thanks to Mike Fosmire for organizing today's chat. If you would like help with any questions between now and the next chat, why not check out the OpenNETCF Forums.
Mike Fosmire:
...and, of course, thank you for all of the great questions. :-)
Mike Fosmire:
Clarification from tony: I've been chatting with Rob off-line - the SQL Server Mobile engine is in ROM on WM5 where it's known as EDB. The WM5 managed APIs don't include managed access "out of the box" but I have seen a managed wrapper that does provide managed access.
