Mobile Development

I am recently working on a mobile project, so I have googled to get related materials and have a high-level pictures.  My basic requirement is to use Visual Studio 2008 to build up the solution and target to suppot BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and iPhone (those device supporting html).

Initially, I am looking to use Microsoft Mobile Library, which can help me to do rendering for different devices.  Below are resources to use Mobile library for develoment:

1. Mobile templates for VS 2008 (click here to download)
2. Emulators for Window Mobiles
   a. Install Active Sync and follow these setup steps.
   b. If you want more window mobiles emulators, you can install Windows Mobile 6 SDK Refresh and Windows Mobile 6 Localized Emulator Images.
3. Emulators for RIM BlackBerry
   a. Install BlackBerry Email and MDS Services Simulator (requires JDK1.5 or greater).
   b. Install any BlackBerry device simulator
4. Emulators for iPhone – there is no emulator for iPhone running on Windows platform.

After using Microsoft Mobile templates, I find that there have limitations on the use of mobile controls.  You cannot render friendly layout; as I target for html-support devices like Window Mobiles or iPhone, therefore I change to use standard asp.net web application for development.  However some points are required to take care:

1. ViewState – try to avoid using ViewState, in order to reduce the data sent throught the network.  This is also applied not to get data that are required on the page.
2. Screen size – make sure the elements on your page can be placed correctly, even the screen is small.
3. Input – use more user-friendly controls for input, instead of free text box.