Tip of the Month (December 2001)

Using Scribbles with .CDB Files

Visual CE has a scribble control that allows you to save a signature or small drawing in a record. When these values are synchronized, they are placed in a bitmap OLE Object on the desktop.

If you use SYWARE's synchronizer (to synchronize to a table in the Windows CE Database Object Store), this is not a problem since the the OLE objects are always synchronized.

But, if you use Microsoft's ActiveSync synchronizer (to synchronize to a .CDB file), the OLE objects are not synchronized by default. You must explicitly ask ActiveSync to turn this on.

You turn on OLE Object synchronization when you first set up synchronization for the table. When you set up Microsoft's ActiveSync synchronization, you will see an "Import from Database to Mobile Device" dialog which lists the tables and lets you select which to synchronize. If you expand the table definition, you are allowed to select which columns to synchronize. Just make sure that the OLE object columns are selected to be synchronized also.