PDA Application Walkthrough

Kyle Cordes
Oasis Digital Solutions Inc.
August 2003

Introduction and Summary

This spring I created a site-inspection data collection PDA application for an Oasis Digital client. The first phase of that project was to build working prototypes of each part of such a system, in order to demonstrate what kind of application we will be able to create, and to bring my own skills up to date with current PDA development tools (my previous PDA work was a few years ago using the C/C++ Palm development tools). The prototype was a success, and led to a development effort for a system now deployed in production.

Many parts of the system presented here remain at the prototype stage (such as the desktop administration application) because their role was filled by other systems in the production environment. The Compact Framework application is presented here in a form very similar to the final system, though with a somewhat outdated set of screenshots.

Creating this system has been an educational experience; it all works far more smoothly than my previous work a few years ago in PDA-based development. The toolset is "Ready for Prime Time" in real world applications.

For now these pages show how the application works from a user perspective, and discuss various issue that came up along the way; later I will add a walkthrough of the source code.

• Introduction
• Development Platforms
• Palm Prototype
• Pocket PC Prototypes I and II
• Pocket PC Working Application
• Desktop / Administration App