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Controls Updated to Support Visual Studio 2008 (.NET 3.5)
Vista & XP gradient styles added to .NET ColorTab control v1.6
Color Tab - Tab Stop for Smartphone
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The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in anyway.

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 Friday, April 11, 2008
Friday, April 11, 2008 7:53:02 AM UTC ( )
There have been a few enquiries about the compatibility of the controls and Visual Studio 2008 (especially the ColorTab Control).

With the developer demo and the purchased controls there is a Visual Studio 2005 and a Visual Studio 2008 install.

The controls in the Visual Studio 2005 install are to be used in Visual Studio 2005 targeting the .NET Compact Framework 2.0
The controls in the Visual Studio 2008 install are to be used in Visual Studio 2008 targeting the .NET Compact Framework 3.5

So, when upgrading your project to Visual Studio 2008, you must right click on the project in the solution using the Pocket PC Controls.com control and upgrade it to target .NET Compact Framework 3.5, then remove the reference to the old Pocket PC Controls.com control (targeting .NET 2.0) and add the control targeting Visual Studio 2008 and targeting .NET Compact Framework 3.5. The projects are not automatically updated to target .NET CF 3.5 when upgrading the solution to Visual Studio 2008


 Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Wednesday, March 19, 2008 4:47:28 AM UTC ( )
We have updated the demo control & deliverables available to include installs for Visual Studio 2008 & .NET 3.5.
All has been tested and is running well.

The process involved:
- Update the solutions using the Visual Studio conversion wizard from Visual Studio 2005 to Visual Studio 2008
- Upgrade each of the projects from .NET 2.0 to target the .NET 3.5 platform using the right click menu on the projects themselves.


 Thursday, January 03, 2008
Thursday, January 03, 2008 11:17:39 AM UTC ( )
After quite a bite of work and extending the existing gradient class in the ColorTab control, we are now able to offer a .NET tab control that supports the desktop, Windows Mobile, Smart Phone & tablet platforms AND offers Vista & XP gradient styles!

The great thing about how the gradient class has been constructed is that all gradients are drawn at runtime.
With this in mind, you are able apply *ANY* color scheme you like to the ColorTab with this sort of effect:


Flat tabs


Standard Gradient


Office Gradient


Vista Gradient


XP Gradient

You can have a closer look at the ColorTab v1.6 control by downloading and implementing the developer demo

 Thursday, November 01, 2007
Thursday, November 01, 2007 7:59:58 AM UTC ( )
Due to the limited nature of the Smartphone interface, here are some notes on how we have organised tab stops for the Smartphone interface.

Within the ColorTab control, it is the tab pages that hold focus. With this in mind, when a tab page has focus, the left and right keys are used to switch between tabs.

All but the Smartphone OS have some way of the user entering the tab page contents (either by mouse, or stylus), we have therefore made the enter key on the Smartphone the trigger for the first control within the currently selected tab page to gain focus. After the tab control pages loose control of focus, it is up to the developer to nagivate between existing controls within the tab pages and to give focus back to the tab control when the user is done.

If there are brighter ideas than this out there, we would be gratefull to hear them.

Here is the code used within the KeyUp event on the tab page for reference:

protected override void OnKeyUp(KeyEventArgs e)
{
  base.OnKeyUp(e);

  if (Parent.Equals(null))
   return;

  switch (e.KeyData)
  {
   case Keys.Right:
    ((ColorTab)Parent).SelectedIndex++;
    break;

   case Keys.Left:
    ((ColorTab)Parent).SelectedIndex--;
    break;
#if Smartphone
   // enter into the tab page
   // the developer is going to have to set focus from here on in
   // due to the limitations of the Smartphone
   case Keys.Enter:
    if (base.Controls.Count > 0 && base.Focused)
     SelectNextControl(this, true, true, true, true);

   break;
#endif
  }
}


 Friday, July 27, 2007
Friday, July 27, 2007 8:55:36 AM UTC ( )
FREE 'HANDY AS HELL' TOOLS...

This is not so much technical... more helpful.

I just wanted to share a couple of tools that I find very handy for day to day use:

1: Sync Toy - Microsoft have a free tool for, well I use it for backing up in Echo mode to an external drive. I am not too fussed with the backup system for Vista... I keep all my gear in one directory and this is all I want backed up. As you are not able to backup one directory, Sync Toy is the answer for me, you can find it here:   http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=E0FC1154-C975-4814-9649-CCE41AF06EB7&displaylang=en

2: Microsoft GIF Creator - For ages, I was looking for FREE animated GIF creator and couldn't find one that I liked, the other week, I came across the Microsoft contribution and although it has been around for ages.. it is really good! If you need to create animated GIF's, you can find it here: http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/win/13212.. just MAGIC!!!

 Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Wednesday, June 20, 2007 10:06:18 AM UTC ( )
Well, I have tried to find an ILMerge GUI out there that will run on my machine and have had no luck, so I finally took it upon my self to create my own (although basic) GUI for the ILMerge utility for combining IL libraries.

Download Links:
ILMerge GUI Executable
ILMerge GUI Source Code (VS 2005)

You will need the ILMerge application also, you can download it here
There is also the version history of the software here

I use this for wrapping up the different controls into one demo executable file which saves me having to collect source code from different places and compile manually.



As I add to the app, I will update the site.
If you would like to add to the app, add comment with your changes and I will update the source & app.