# Wednesday, December 01, 2004

New version of .NETCF GDI+ Library

XcrossOne Studio have just released a new v1.2 release of their incredible looking GDI+ library for .NETCF. A key change in this release is a switch to a Shared Source license, similar to what we use with our OpenNETCF projects.

This means that you are no longer restricted to releasing any works using the code in source form, this should have a dramatic effect on the number of people able to use the library. You can achieve some pretty impressive visuals, as demonstrated in the large gallery of samples on the site. This latest version adds the ability to combine raster images and anti-aliased text with the vector based drawing.

#    Comments [0] |
# Saturday, November 27, 2004

CLS Compliant WaitForSingleObject

Maartens recent blog post highlighted an issue with the current SDF implementation of Core.WaitForSingleObject when used from VB.NET since this method was not CLS Compliant and used unsigned integer types for both parameters and return type. Because of the values used by this function its very easy to convert it to be CLS compliant, so from the next release you'll be able to call it just as easily from both C# and VB. The method only accepts a timeout value up to 0x7fffffff which incidently is the maximum positive value for an Int32. The exception to this is a special constant passed when you want to wait indefinately on a handle - 0xffffffff which just happens to be -1 when interpreted as a signed integer. The same transformations are posible on the Wait enumeration which is the return type for the method. The amended code is already up on the online source browser. Therefore to wait with a 1s timeout on a handle in a loop you can now do this from VB:-

While WaitForSingleObject(myWin32Event, 1000) <> Wait.Object

            'do stuff here

End While

#    Comments [0] |
# Monday, November 22, 2004

Toggle Bluetooth on an iPaq device

We can already enable and disable Bluetooth on devices equipped with Microsoft's Bluetooth stack. In the case of iPaq devices, which use the Widcomm stack, it is possible to toggle the radio state using an API provided in HP's iPAQUtil.dll. This can be P/Invoked from a .NETCF project like so:-

[DllImport("iPAQUtil.dll", SetLastError=true)]

public static extern bool iPAQSetBlueToothRadio(ref int lpdwValue);

Which you can then call with:-

int val = 0;

iPAQSetBlueToothRadio(ref val);

Where val is either 0 to disable Bluetooth, or 1 to enable it. Tested on an iPaq 2210 but should work on any other iPaq device with Bluetooth.

Update:-

The following should also work for devices with WiFi built in:-

[DllImport("iPAQUtil.dll", SetLastError=true)]

public static extern bool iPAQSetWLANRadio(ref int lpdwValue);

But I've not been able to test this myself.
#    Comments [1] |
# Friday, November 19, 2004

From the Mobility Road Show

Thom Robbins posts some Powerpoint slides and code from the recent Mobility Road Shows. Check out "Mobility and Visual Studio 2005" for a good overview of NETCF 2.0 development features.

#    Comments [0] |
# Saturday, November 13, 2004

Hosting a Native Windows Control - The desktop approach

As a follow on to my recent article, I have compared and contrasted the System.Windows.Forms.Control classes in desktop and compact frameworks.
#    Comments [0] |
# Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Hosting a Native Windows Control - Live on MSDN

My latest .NETCF article is now live in the MSDN library. This is an update of the control hosting article previously published here at OpenNETCF.org. The process has been simplified so that there is now a standard base class (ControlEx) which does most of the hard work for you, the process of hosting a control is therefore much closer to the desktop experience. The article contains a sample using the WebBrowser control, which shows not only setting properties and calling methods for the control, but also reacting to notifications from the native control.

#    Comments [1] |
# Thursday, November 04, 2004

Virtual Bob

Virtual PC is a great tool when testing and developing as you run multiple OS versions and configurations on a single machine. However Ben Armstrong has found a more unusual use for Virtual PC - to run Microsoft Bob, the short-lived home oriented shell around windows 3.11 / 95. See the full story including nostalgic screen-shots here on Ben's blog.

#    Comments [0] |
# Tuesday, November 02, 2004

Open All Hours

Sometimes you want to ensure that the system will not automatically close down your application when it goes into the background. You can achieve this by handling the Closing event of your main form, the event arguments passed to your handler will allow you to Cancel the close. Therefore you can set a boolean member to ensure that the operation only succeeds once you decide it's okay to close:-

bool keepopen = true;

private void Form1_Closing(object sender, System.ComponentModel.CancelEventArgs e)

{

   if(keepopen)

   {

      e.Cancel = true;

   }

}

 

Then based on some pre-determined action in your program you can set keepopen to false and the form will close down.

#    Comments [0] |

The Naked Emulator

If you want to display the standard Pocket PC emulator without the regular skin, so just the screen itself is shown you can modify a couple of the settings files and skin bitmaps. For the default Pocket PC 2002 emulator you'll find the files here by default:-

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\CompactFrameworkSDK\ConnectionManager\Bin\Images\PocketPC\2002\1033

Make a backup before you alter anything!

Then replace the ppc2002.xml file with this one. Finally add this image to the folder which is the null skin, necessary in order that the emulator window is sized correctly. The finished result should look like this:-

 

Naked Emulator
#    Comments [0] |
# Friday, October 29, 2004

Great Installation advice on the Smartphone Developer newsgroup

Lars Peter recently posted this excellent post on the microsoft.public.smartphone.developer newsgroup.

In the post Lars describes using Nullsoft Installer (NSIS) to build a desktop installation package to include multiple cab file installations. This is ideal for those scenarios when you want to deploy more than just one application cab file, for example OpenNETCF's Smart Device Framework, Sql Ce or the .NETCF runtimes themselves.

Lars' post includes a sample install script, which you can pass a number of cab files for installation. You can also download the sample script from Lars' server.

Nice one Lars!

#    Comments [0] |
# Wednesday, October 20, 2004

Orange SPV C500 ROM Update - Go get it!

Spotted over at MoDaCo, Orange have released an updated ROM which fixes the GAPI issues on the device and a few other fixes:-

  • Videos can be sent via MMS
  • Flickering issue in games has now been fixed
  • Packet video full screen mode and backlight fix
  • Improved memory management of the camera and video applications
  • Improved browsing/upload speed (changed from GPRS class 8 to class 10)

It's a 22mb download from Orange's website

#    Comments [0] |

Need a GUID in a hurry?

There may be times in your application you need to generate a new unique Guid. The System.Guid class in .NETCF v1.0 doesn't have the NewGuid method which is what you would normally use on the desktop. There are a couple of proposed alternatives, either generating one yourself by following the standards for Guids - using a few P/Invokes to Crypto API methods to get random numbers, using the GuidEx class which uses the same technique or indirectly using SqlCe to create a new identity value.

An easier way in many cases is to use one of the COM subsystem API methods as this involves only a single P/Invoke call. The only caveat to this is that not all CE based systems have full COM support - there are three varieties Minimal COM, Full COM and DCOM support. Minimal COM doesn't support Guid generation. However in my brief experimentation with Platform Builder it would appear that among .NETCF's prerequisites is COM support so this should in theory be supported by any CE device on which .NETCF is supported. It is certainly supported on all Windows Mobile devices:-

namespace InTheHand

{

      ///

      /// Helper class for generating a globally unique identifier (GUID).

      ///

      /// "System.Guid"/>

      public sealed class ComGuid

      {

            private ComGuid(){}

 

            ///

            /// Initializes a new instance of the "System.Guid"/> class.

            ///

            /// A new "System.Guid"/> object

            public static Guid NewGuid()

            {

                  Guid val = Guid.Empty;

 

                  int hresult = 0;

 

                  hresult = CoCreateGuid(ref val);

 

                  if(hresult != 0)

                  {

                        throw new System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception(Marshal.GetLastWin32Error(), "Error creating new Guid");

                  }

 

                  return val;

            }

 

            [DllImport("ole32.dll", SetLastError=true)]

            private static extern int CoCreateGuid(ref Guid pguid );

      }

}

 

#    Comments [0] |
# Thursday, October 14, 2004

Create a Top-Most form

The following code can be used to force your form to the top of the z-order. Use this functionality with care since it's bad practice to hog the topmost position which could obscure other important functionality.

private void Form1_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)

{

      //get handle

      this.Capture = true;

      IntPtr hwnd = OpenNETCF.Win32.Win32Window.GetCapture();

      this.Capture = false;

 

      //set foreground

      OpenNETCF.Win32.Win32Window.SetWindowPos(hwnd, Win32Window.SetWindowPosZOrder.HWND_TOPMOST, 0, 0, 0, 0, Win32Window.SetWindowPosFlags.SWP_NOMOVE | Win32Window.SetWindowPosFlags.SWP_NOSIZE | Win32Window.SetWindowPosFlags.SWP_SHOWWINDOW);

 

}

Note that this code cannot be placed in the form constructor, since the native form has yet to be created so a valid window handle won't be returned. Here the code is placed into the Form_Load method.

In .NETCF 2.0 you can set the TopMost property of your form which removes the need for any of this interop (Thanks Daniel Moth for correcting this).

#    Comments [1] |
# Wednesday, October 13, 2004

.NETCF Chat Tomorrow

As part of a regular series of .NETCF technical chats there will be an MVP hosted chat tomorrow (14th October) on any aspect of .NET Compact Framework and Smart Device programming. 10-11am PDT, 17-18 GMT

Add a reminder to your calendar

More details, and details of other technical chats, here at MSDN.

#    Comments [0] |
# Saturday, October 09, 2004

Bring a .NETCF Form to the foreground

Sometimes calling BringToFront for your form is not enough to bring your app to the foreground. You can P/Invoke SetForegroundWindow which will activate your app and bring the window to the front of the Z-Order:-

C#

public void SetForegroundWindow()
{
    this.Capture = true;
    IntPtr hwnd = OpenNETCF.Win32.Win32Window.GetCapture();
    this.Capture = false;
    OpenNETCF.Win32.Win32Window.SetForegroundWindow(hwnd);
}

or VB

Public Sub SetForegroundWindow
    Me.Capture = True
    Dim hwnd As IntPtr = OpenNETCF.Win32.Win32Window.GetCapture()
    Me.Capture = False
    OpenNETCF.Win32.Win32Window.SetForegroundWindow(hwnd)
End Sub

#    Comments [0] |
# Thursday, October 07, 2004

Fixing ComboBox bugs...

The standard ComboBox in NETCF has a couple of "issues", however it's possible to workaround them with a bit of tweaking. I rolled together a number of these fixes into a ComboBoxEx class. Heres the code (C#), I hope this (with a few more missing features) will be in the next SDF build with designer support like our other controls:-

namespace OpenNETCF.Windows.Forms

{

      /// <summary>

      /// Extended ComboBox control.

      /// </summary>

      public class ComboBoxEx : ComboBox, IWin32Window

      {

            //windows messages

            private const int WM_SETREDRAW = 0x0b;

            private const int CB_SETCURSEL = 0x014E;

            private const int CB_DELETESTRING = 0x0144;

            private const int CB_INSERTSTRING = 0x014A;

 

            //native window handle

            private IntPtr m_handle;

 

            //databound collection

            private IBindingList thebindinglist = null;

 

            //is display updatable?

            private bool m_updatable = true;

 

            /// <summary>

            /// Gets the window handle that the control is bound to.

            /// </summary>

            public IntPtr Handle

            {

                  get

                  {

                        if(m_handle == IntPtr.Zero)

                        {

                              this.Capture = true;

                              m_handle = Win32Window.GetCapture();

                              this.Capture = false;

                        }

 

                        return m_handle;

                  }

            }

 

            // Redraw code courtesy of Alex Feinman - http://blog.opennetcf.org/afeinman/PermaLink,guid,9305a1d9-e24e-4310-89e2-f80808076a37.aspx

 

            /// <summary>

            /// Maintains performance when items are added to the <see cref="ComboBoxEx"/> one at a time.

            /// </summary>

            public void BeginUpdate()

            {

                  m_updatable = false;

 

                  Win32Window.SendMessage(this.Handle, WM_SETREDRAW, 0, 0);

            }

 

            /// <summary>

            /// Resumes painting the <see cref="ComboBoxEx"/> control after painting is suspended by the <see cref="BeginUpdate"/> method.

            /// </summary>

            public void EndUpdate()

            {

                  m_updatable = true;

                  Win32Window.SendMessage(this.Handle, WM_SETREDRAW, 1, 0);

            }

 

            //ComboBox doesn't support ItemChanges in a datasource implementing IBindingList

            //The following workaround forces the list to update if an item is changed

 

            //data source has changed

            protected override void OnDataSourceChanged(EventArgs e)

            {

                  //remove event handler

                  if(thebindinglist != null)

                  {

                        thebindinglist.ListChanged-= new ListChangedEventHandler(ComboBoxEx_ListChanged);

                        //reset our handle to the bound data

                        thebindinglist = null;

                  }

 

                  //get the underlying ibindinglist (if there is one)

                  if(this.DataSource is IListSource)

                  {

                        IList thelist = ((IListSource)this.DataSource).GetList();

                        if(thelist is IBindingList)

                        {

                              thebindinglist = (IBindingList)thelist;

                        }

                  }

                  else if(this.DataSource is IBindingList)

                  {

                        thebindinglist = (IBindingList)this.DataSource;

                  }

                 

                  if(thebindinglist != null)

                  {

                        //hook up event for data changed

                        thebindinglist.ListChanged+=new ListChangedEventHandler(ComboBoxEx_ListChanged);

                  }

                 

                  base.OnDataSourceChanged (e);

            }

 

            //called when a change occurs in the bound collection

            private void ComboBoxEx_ListChanged(object sender, ListChangedEventArgs e)

            {

                  if(m_updatable)

                  {

                        if (e.ListChangedType == ListChangedType.ItemChanged)

                        {

                              //update the item

 

                              //delete old item

                              Win32Window.SendMessage(this.Handle, CB_DELETESTRING, e.NewIndex, 0);

                              //get display text for new item

                              string newval = this.GetItemText(this.Items[e.NewIndex]);

                              //marshal to native memory

                              IntPtr pString = MarshalEx.StringToHGlobalUni(newval);

                              //send message to native control

                              Win32Window.SendMessage(this.Handle, CB_INSERTSTRING, e.NewIndex, pString);

                              //free native memory

                              MarshalEx.FreeHGlobal(pString);

                        }

                  }

            }

 

            /// <summary>

            /// Get or Set the selected index in collection.

            /// </summary>

            /// <remarks>Overridden to overcome issue with setting value to -1 (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;327244)</remarks>

            public override int SelectedIndex

            {

                  get

                  {

                        return base.SelectedIndex;

                  }

                  set

                  {

                        if(value == -1)

                        {

                              Win32Window.SendMessage(this.Handle, CB_SETCURSEL, -1, 0);

                        }

                        else

                        {

                              base.SelectedIndex = value;

                        }

                  }

            }

 

      }

}

 

So whats in the above code? Well it integrates Alex Feinman's recent tip to implement Begin/EndUpdate methods to suspend redrawing when populating the control.

Secondly if works around a bug in the DataBinding support for ComboBox. If you make an edit to an existing item in the bound collection the combo wont normally update (It does correctly react to additions and deletions).

Thirdly it overcomes a known issue with resetting the selected index property (by assigning -1) which normally has to be done twice to take effect - details in this KB article - Thanks to Tim Wilson for posting this KB on the newsgroup.

As a Bonus I've added a Handle property so you can get at the native control handle - which in conjunction with Win32Window methods allows you to tweak other aspects of the control.

UPDATE: Changed the databinding code to update a single item via P/Invoke rather than refreshing the list. Changed the SelectedIndex to set via P/Invoke - avoids raising the SelectedIndexChanged event.

#    Comments [0] |