Visual CE® FAQ
V1-a)
Other than Visual CE®, what do I need to create a form?
If
you have a Windows CE device and a desktop PC with any Microsoft
Windows operating system installed, you have everything you need.
Your
Windows CE device came with a CD that had the Windows CE desktop
connectivity software (ActiveSync and/or Windows Mobile Device Center).
Make sure this is installed on you PC before installing Visual CE.
At the time of this writing, download and setup instructions for
ActiveSync and the Windows Mobile Device Center are also available
from Microsoft.
V1-b)
I'm not a programmer, will I be able to use Visual CE?
Visual CE was designed for people who are comfortable with computers,
but are not necessarily programmers. If you can use a web browser
(and you probably can since you are reading this), you can create
forms and databases with Visual CE.
V1-c)
Does Visual CE work with Microsoft Visual Basic, Visual
C++, Visual Studio .NET?
Visual
CE is a self contained development environment. Forms created
with Visual CE cannot be used directly as input forms for Visual
Basic or Visual C++ programs.
However,
from your Visual CE application, you can launch Visual Basic, Visual C++, Visual Studio .NET programs. Likewise Visual Basic, Visual C++, and Visual Studio .NET can
launch a Visual CE application. Data can be passed from one to
the other through the database.
Visual
CE's tables reside in the Windows CE Database Object Store,
a Pocket Access database, or a SQL Server CE database. If the tables
were created using Pocket Access or SQL Server CE, they can be accessed
using the operating system's database APIs. If the table were created
using Visual CE, they can be accessed through the operating system's
APIs.
You
can also pass values to a Visual CE application by setting a Visual
CE variable in your application. You do this by
using the /a command line switch on the Visual CE runtime.
V1-d)
Does Visual CE work on Pocket PC devices? Windows Mobile Devices?
P/PC devices? H/PC devices? H/PC Pro devices?
Visual
CE works on all Windows CE devices running Windows CE 3.0 or better.
Visual
CE works on all Pocket PC's, Smartphones, Windows Mobile, and H/PC Pro devices.
Visual
CE works on Windows CE 3.x, Windows CE 4.x, Windows 5.x devices, and Windows 6.x devices.
V1-e) What versions of Windows CE does Visual CE work with?
Visual CE works on all Windows CE devices running Windows CE 3.0
or better.
Visual
CE works on all Pocket PC's, Smartphones, Windows Mobile, and H/PC Pro devices.
Visual
CE works on Windows CE 3.x, Windows CE 4.x, Windows 5.x devices, and Windows 6.x devices.
V1-f) What is the difference between the Personal Edition, Professional Edition, and MobileSuites?
The Professional Edition and MobileSuites licenses allow you to redistribute
your forms to third parties. This redistribution license is royalty free.
(Does not include mEnable and sqlceEnable) The Personal Edition has no
redistributable components.
The MobileSuites include a Professional Edition, as well additional
SYWARE, Inc. products. For a detail of what is included in each, please
go
here
V1-g)
How can I upgrade from one edition (Personal, Professional, Enterprise
or MobileSuite) to another?
Our current policy is that you can upgrade one edition to a higher
edition by just paying the difference the price of the edition
you want minus whatever you paid for the edition you have. For
example, if you paid $129 for your Personal Edition, you can upgrade
to the Pro Edition for just $270 ($399 minus $129). For more details,
visit our upgrade information page.
V1-h)
Does Visual CE support color?
You can set the background and foregound color on a control by
control basis. You can also specify the background color for the
entire form.
Visual CE also allows you to "dress up" your form by
putting color bitmaps on form. You can do this by creating a read/only
scribble control and picking a color bit map as the background
image.
V1-i)
Does Visual CE support sound?
Visual
CE Command Buttons can be used to play a variety of beeps and
buzzes. Visual CE can also play pre-recorded .WAV files.
V1-j)
Can Visual CE capture a signature? Recognize handwriting?
Visual CE can capture a drawing or signature and put it in the
database. If the database is synchronized to a desktop database,
it is stored as an OLE Object. If the desktop database is a Microsoft
Access database, you can view the drawing/signature by double
clicking on it or you can print it.
Visual CE has no handwriting recognition capabilities built in,
but it has been used successfully with third party handwriting
recognition software.
V1-k)
What does "royalty-free" pricing mean for Visual CE?
Royalty-free pricing means you don't have to pay a separate fee for each
handheld on which your final application is running. This insures that anyone
can inexpensively deploy mobile database applications. For example, a company
that is using a Visual CE-based application, built using the Professional
Edition, on 25 handhelds pays as little as $16 per device for the Visual CE
built applications. There are no per device fees required to deploy applications
built with Visual CE, unless they also use mEnable or sqlceEnable.
V1-l)
Do you provide evaluation copies?
SYWARE
is confident you'll like what you see with our family of database
development tools. In case you're not sure, download the Visual
CE Evaluation Edition.
V1-m)
Is there a Macro Programming capability?
The Visual CE Personal and Professional Editions and all MobileSuites have
a Macro Programming capability. Read more about it
here.
V1-n)
Can you design forms on the desktop? On the handheld?
Forms
can be built and modified on both the desktop and the handheld.
V1-o)
Do the forms run on the desktop? On the handheld?
Forms
usually run on the handheld (read/writing data on the handheld).
The forms
can also be run on the desktop. The forms will read/write data
in the desktop tables that the handheld tables are being synchronized
to.
V1-p)
How can I put Visual CE's relational capabilities to work?
Visual
CE has multi-table / multi-form capabilities. For example, say
you have a table of ORDERS and ITEMS. Each ORDER record has multiple,
corresponding ITEM records, and records in both tables have a
column called ORDER_ID which relates the ORDER records to the
ITEM records.
A
Visual CE application can make use of this relational characteristic
in the following ways:
-
On the ITEM form you can have a button that, when pressed, launches
the ORDER form and positions at that item's order.
-
On the ITEM form, you can have a lookup control that displays
information from the corresponding ORDER record (like date of
the order, customer, etc.)
-
On the ORDER form, you can have a grid that displays the items
associated with that order. If the user double clicks on a particular
item, Visual CE will launch the ITEM form and display that item.
-
In the ITEM form, you can have a dropdown of possible items
and this dropdown can be populated with data from another table,
such as an INVENTORY table.
-
The Visual CE synchronizer can synchronize both tables to the
desktop.
-
Visual CE can generate new, unique ORDER_ID's when creating
new ORDER records. In addition, Visual CE can automatically
set an ITEM record's ORDER_ID when a new ITEM record is created.
-
Visual CE can delete all the corresponding ITEM records for
an ORDER when the ORDER record is deleted.
In
addition to the foreign key capabilities described above, Visual
CE allows you to specify a uniqueness constraint on a table.
Also,
a form can be larger than the physical screen on the device. You
can put buttons on the form so the user can move from one "region"
to another. From the perspective of your user, it will appear
that the application has multiple "pages".
You
can do all the above by just creating controls and setting their
properties. No coding is needed.