J2i.Net

Samsung released an updated version of their Windows Mobile SDK today.  The updated SDK contains new APIs that will let you access the proximity sensor and the compass in devices such as the Omnia II. You can get more information on the updated SDK from the Samsung Mobile Innovator site.

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The Windows Marketplace for Mobile is now Live. If you fire up your 6.5 Emulator and click on the Marketplace icon you'll be able to log in look around.  Right now only a few applications are available.  Edward from MSMobiles.com has uploaded a video to youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6Py1ZYyy1s) and written a review on it (http://msmobiles.com/news.php/8641.html ). Windows Mobile 6.5 devices will start to roll out into the hands of consumers in another 2 days though both newly released devices and ROM updates for existing devices.  Most Windows Mobile devices will have the Marketplace preinstalled (though a few months ago it was reported that Verizon Wireless has decided that the Marketplace would not be included on their devices).

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If you are just getting started with Windows Mobile development then you will want to check out a page that Mike Francis has posted on his site.  It gives a a rather complete list of software you'll need/want, community resource, example code, guidance documents and other resources to get you started.  Check it out at http://blog.mjfnet.com/blog/FormatPage.aspx?path=content/projects/resources/resources.format.html

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In reply to developer questions the Windows Mobile Phone team posted a FAQ on including icons in your Windows Mobile Marketplace submissions.  You can read the FAQ and some related post through the following links.

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Wondering what type of security that the Marketplace for Windows Mobile Phone will have? Well stay tuned.  According to Inigo Lopez of Microsoft the details are coming in the next couple of weeks.

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Java and Windows Mobile have long been technologies that have been mutually exclusive.  Other than the midlet manager available on some Windows phones. Sun just released JavaFX and it is available for Windows Mobile. You can download it here: http://blogs.sun.com/javafx/entry/want_to_try_javafx_on

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I posted a code sample on CodeProject a few moments ago.  It is a remake of a simple game.  Best of all if the game is run on a compatible Samsung device it will take advantage of the hardware via the Samsung Mobile SDK. For more information see the article at the following link:

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/mobile/WiMoBubblePuzzle.aspx

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I've heard developers ache over the challenges that targetting multiple form factors and multiple resolutions can bring.  I just went through an excercise this weekend in which I had to make a simple game that would run on 4 different form factors.  320x240, 320x320, 240x400, and 480x640.  It wasn't as challenging as one would think (Of course it helps that it was a simple game).  To make my graphics look their best on each platform I used mip maps for my sprites

I didn't specifically target any of those resolutions.  Instead for my sprites I made a high resolution version (first row) and then scaled it down in half, and again, and again.  Then I created a mapping function so that if I requested the red orb of a certain size then a copy of the orb that best fit my requirements would be selected.  The result that I ended up with was the graphics looked absolutly stunning when the program was wun on a WVGA device, but scaled themselves back reasonably when run on a QVGA device.

The technique itself is old.  I remember first being introduced to it in 1994.  And it is very effective.

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When it comes to developing software the icon for the executable is usually not something handled by me and not something over which I place a great amount of concern.  But earlier today I was working on a Windows Mobile program that I wanted to have a polished look, down to the program icon.  I designed my icon work in Photoshop and was trying to import it into the Visual Studio icon editor.  I had no trouble doing this with the 24-bit true-color version of the icons, but when I was adding the paletted versions I ran into problems.  I evaluated some free icon editors and came across one that I absolutly love, IcoFX.

In short IcoFX is free and very capable.  It will save icons in both Windows and OS X format.  It takes care of resizing the icon images for you. If you are ever in need of a better icon editor you should check this out.

IcoFX Web Page

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I've heard criticisms of the Windows and Windows Mobile environment because of the way that the default message pump is implemented and the performance cap that it puts on applications that require constant refreshing of the UI (such as games).  The problem is that the default message pump is geared towards business applications and minimizing CPU usage.  If you need to make a high performance application or game then you should use a different message pump implementation. You should not be waiting on WM_PAINT message.  You should just go ahead and repaint the screen.   Given that many developers will never alter the default message pump implementation it is preferable to have one that has low CPU usage by default.  If you want to do performance graphics you need a loop similar to the following:

	
bool keepRunning = true;
while(keepRunning)
{
	if(PeekMessage(&msg,NULL,0,0,TRUE))
	{
		if(msg.message==WM_QUIT)
			keepRunning=false;
		if (!TranslateAccelerator(msg.hwnd, hAccelTable, &msg)) 
		{
			TranslateMessage(&msg);
			DispatchMessage(&msg);
		}
	}
	else
	{
		//Execute Game Logic Here and rendering here
	}
}

The default message pump handling would be blocked when there are no messages to process and the WM_PAINT message (being low priority) would always be the last thing on the queue. In the message pump above the application will be able to concentrate on the game logic and give attention to messages on the queue when they arrive.  We'll talk about  other things that you would need to do for a game in coming posts.

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In my experience identifying the DirectDraw driver on the device is difficult to impossible.  According to documentation the IDIRECTDRAW::GetDeviceIdentifier method should be used to retrieve the driver information.  At the time that I am writing this the Windows Mobile 6 documentation shows that this method has one parameter of type  LPDDDEVICEIDENTIFIER.  But when you try to use the method you’ll find there is a second parameter needed of type DWORD.  When I first came across this I was a little confused because there was no mention of it in the documentation.  But I finally came across documentation for Windows CE 3.0 that mentioned the second parameter as being a flag and DDGDI_GETHOSTIDENTIFIER was the only possible value.  I tried to use the flag but then I found that it wasn’t defined in my header file.  After a bit of searching on the Internet I found this flag has a value of one.  I added a conditional #define to my source code.  It is conditional so that if I ever do get a correct header file it won’t break my code with redundant definitions.

#ifndef DDGDI_GETHOSTIDENTIFIER
#define DDGDI_GETHOSTIDENTIFIER 0x00000001L
#endif

I ran my code an error informing me that the argument was invalid.  I considered the possibility that 1 wasn’t the correct value. So I tried calling the function in a for loop testing out all possible values.  For the value of 0 I received  E_NOTIMPL. For all other values I received E_INVALIDARG.  As a final test I ran this against an emulator image with identical results.  So as far as I am concerned this method cannot be called in confidence.

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Here's a preview of the developer interface.  In these screenshots the developer has not yet done the ID verification steps so in one of the images you'll see amessage about ID not being verified.  Overall the interface looks clean and satisficing.  In other words it looks good enough.

Basic Account Details: 

A closeup of the "Add Product" drop down

Dashboard Interface:

Products tab. Here you can see the that the publisher ID has not been verified.  That step involves printing some paperwork and taking it to a notary.

Help Screen:

Products Tab:

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I recent had to take into consideration the APIs available in Windows Mobile for something I was working on recreationally. As per usual I added my notes and conclusions to my OneNote notebook and thought I would share some of it for those that may need to look up the same information.

I think I may have to go through all of these APIs and write a general introduction like what I did for Windows Mobile Power Management.

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There's no Windows Mobile 6.5 hardware officially available yet, but FizeMobility has quite a collection of WM6.5 Widgets.  To browse the collection head over to http://www.fuzemobility.com/wm-65-widget-mania/

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The requirements for programs targetting Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1 have been published on the Windows Mobile developer site (http://developer.windowsmobile.com). For the uninitiated up until now all discussion about the Windows Mobile marketplace has targetted Windows Mobile 6.5 only.  It was only recently that it was announced that Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1 would have access to the WM Marketplace.  From the announcement that Steve Bell (Microsoft Senior Product Manager) posted:

Some of the significant differences between this document and the previous one include guidelines on GAPI based applications and updated requirements for screen resolution.  GAPI was an API that predates DirectX for Mobile that was primarily used in games.  GAPI was given deprecated status as of Windows Mobile 5 and as of Windows Mobile 6.5 it is up to the OEM to decide whether or not they want the API included in the device.  Programs that make use of GAPI must install the GX.DLL into the applications target folder.  As for screen resolutions since Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1 devices had a lower variance of screen resolutions for the demands for screen resolution compatibility are also lower.

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