Database Users

Opera 8.5 ppc beta2 is out

Take a look here:
info: http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=127518
Dload: http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/products/winmobileppc/
New features in this build
- tabs
- support for http upload
- keyboard shortcuts:
tab (next form element)
space (scroll down one page)
Have fun
MaX

A review:
Even the first beta version of Opera was a real relevation for the Pocket PC community. Much as it had several bugs (particularly on pre-Windows Mobile 5 devices), it has quickly become the browser of choice for many Pocket PC users (including me), at least on Windows Mobile 5.
The new version is, speed-wise, clearly the best browser I've ever seen for the Pocket PC. It's much-much faster than the alternatives. You'll certainly love it!
The good
* The WM2003(SE) version seems to be working great: I haven't encountered the infamous Opera-is-stalled bug under pre-WM5 operating system any more. I've tested the new version of Opera with all the test pages (the search facility at http://www.europe.com/en/ - screenshot here; RedHotPawn) that make the previous version stall at once. No problems encountered so far.
This may be related to the fact that now Opera senses some Web servers' not answering – see this and this message.
A iPAQ 2210 screenshot can be seen here and here (the latter taken at 25% zoom level so that the entire chessboard is visible) – as can be seen, as opposed to b1, I could log in and play on my iPAQ 2210 as well.
* It feels much faster than beta1, which is a feat in itself because beta 1 was already much faster than any alternative browser.
* There's tab support! (See the screenshots provided for examples.)
* The bug related to not being able to display loooooong pages is fixed. It worked great with all the pages I've thrown it at; an example screenshot of Tero Lehto's blog is here.
* Much as the new version is still using custom (non-native) GUI components, one of the biggest problems, that is, the text areas hiding the last characters in each row behind the scrollbar, is fixed as can be seen in here.
* The "You have XX days left of your trial period" dialog is no longer displayed at startup.
(There must be tons of other bugfixes, as far as previous beta1 bugs are concerned; these were the ones I've explicitly tested and compared to beta1.)
The bad
* After scrolling a page with any amount (or going to a new page), you will not be able to directly tap-and-hold a link to bring up the context menu (so that you can open the link in a new tab) without the need for at least partially highlight it (or the text that contains it). Fortunately, this is a minor annoyance and you'll quickly learn how to highlight (part) the link without clicking it.
* The new version is still using custom GUI components, which makes it impossible to use any kind of common Windows keyboard shortcuts. This is a mayor annoyance to anybody using an external keyboard to enter a lot of texts and wanting to use the traditional Windows shortcuts to quickly navigate through / highlight / copy/cut/paste text in the text input components.
* On some Pocket PC's (for example, the Pocket Loox 720) the new version still uses non-proportional Courier New fonts in the address bar / in the tab titles. This is a minor annoyance, though.
* Unfortunately, the settings dialogs (screenshot 1 and 2) are as simple as in beta1. The latter, however, now has a new checkbox, " Set Opera as default browser", which makes it unnecessary to manually import a registry file (please see the articles in the Recommended links section for the registry import file I've created for beta1 to revert the default browser assignments) in order to revert back to using Pocket Internet Explorer (if you make Opera the default Web browser on your Pocket PC).
Nevertheless, the lack of detailed settings dialogs are not a problem – with manually editing (or, downloading my sample configuration files) the main configuration files of Opera, you can fine-tune it (scrollbar visibility, proxy usage, scroll behaviour etc).
* Under WM2003, Menu/Display/Landscape still doesn't rotate the viewport. Again, this would be pretty easy to implement because Opera, unlike for example the Pocket Internet Explorer (PIE) plug-ins or almost all ( uBook and Mobipocket Reader being the most important exceptions) e-book readers, doesn't need to rely on the Portrait-only, underlying PIE engine. This is a minor problem though and "only" affecting WM2003 users – screen rotation works great in post-WM2003 operating systems.
* Still no advanced context menus (copy link, save image), no in-page searching etc. These are, however, only minor annoyances, which don't have a negative effect on the browsing experience itself.
* Still no " One Column" view mode like that of PIE starting with WM2003SE or the PIE plug-in PIEPlus (see this review on the latest version of latter, including a detailed comparison of the "one column" modes offered by PIE and PIEPlus). This would be very useful to maximize the usage of the available screen estate on many pages; for example, the XDA-Dev forums (example screenshot of Opera 8.5b2 rendering the latter here – as can be seen, the useful contents of the page only occupies about 65-70% of the available horizontal screen estate. With a real "One Column" mode, it'd be close to 100%).
* Still no support for system-level favourites. This would also be really easy to implement as there's nothing particular about the .url files in \Windows\Favorites – they're really-really easy to process. (I'd say a hour's work for an average C++ programmer.)
Verdict
I can only use superlatives when speaking of this application. Despite its (still) missing functionalities, its speed and compatibility is just phenomenal.
Recommended links
The following articles/tips all discuss/are all related to the previous, beta 1 version. Note that some of their contents is now that they are fixed are outdated. They may still be worth checking out - particularly the ones on manually editing the Opera configuration files. You'll find a lot of information in these articles never published by anyone else.
ESSENTIAL (NEW, UNIQUE BUGFIXES!!!) to know about the great Web browser, Opera beta! - I haven't run into the same problem with the new Opera version – yet. This doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't exist any more – therefore, if the address bar auto-completion crashes your Pocket PC with beta2 too, make sure you read this article.
Modify the default scrolling behaviour of Pocket PC Web browsers. Note that even the beta 2 of Opera uses jump-by-link by default (on all operating systems, not just WM5), as far as its D-pad navigation is concerned; you will most probably want to override this and switch to the 'scroll a page at a time' behaviour. Note that the new scroll a page feature (invokable via the Space key) only works on devices with a built-in keyboard; for example, on the HTC Wizard (screenshot of Opera running on my HTC Wizard here).
Opera 8.5 beta on WM5 - it is certainly different from the WM2003(SE) version and is working GREAT!
WM5 compliance report: the bandwidth reduction service OnSpeed works pretty good; additional Toonel information – this article will be useful for everyone that wants to configure his or her Opera to access the Web sites through a HTTP proxy.
Pocket PC version of Famous Web Browser, Opera 8.5 beta Officially Released!

link is broken. Could you upload it. Thanks

Do you mean this one? http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/products/winmobileppc/
It's working OK with me.

Opera 8.5 beta 2 is out!

Even the first beta version of Opera was a real relevation for the Pocket PC community. Much as it had several bugs (particularly on pre-Windows Mobile 5 devices), it has quickly become the browser of choice for many Pocket PC users (including me), at least on Windows Mobile 5.
The new version is, speed-wise, clearly the best browser I've ever seen for the Pocket PC. It's much-much faster than the alternatives. You'll certainly love it!
The good
* The WM2003(SE) version seems to be working great: I haven't encountered the infamous Opera-is-stalled bug under pre-WM5 operating system any more. I've tested the new version of Opera with all the test pages (the search facility at http://www.europe.com/en/ - screenshot here; RedHotPawn) that make the previous version stall at once. No problems encountered so far.
This may be related to the fact that now Opera senses some Web servers' not answering – see this and this message.
A iPAQ 2210 screenshot can be seen here and here (the latter taken at 25% zoom level so that the entire chessboard is visible) – as can be seen, as opposed to b1, I could log in and play on my iPAQ 2210 as well.
* It feels much faster than beta1, which is a feat in itself because beta 1 was already much faster than any alternative browser.
* There's tab support! (See the screenshots provided for examples.)
* The bug related to not being able to display loooooong pages is fixed. It worked great with all the pages I've thrown it at; an example screenshot of Tero Lehto's blog is here.
* Much as the new version is still using custom (non-native) GUI components, one of the biggest problems, that is, the text areas hiding the last characters in each row behind the scrollbar, is fixed as can be seen in here.
* The "You have XX days left of your trial period" dialog is no longer displayed at startup.
(There must be tons of other bugfixes, as far as previous beta1 bugs are concerned; these were the ones I've explicitly tested and compared to beta1.)
The bad
* After scrolling a page with any amount (or going to a new page), you will not be able to directly tap-and-hold a link to bring up the context menu (so that you can open the link in a new tab) without the need for at least partially highlight it (or the text that contains it). Fortunately, this is a minor annoyance and you'll quickly learn how to highlight (part) the link without clicking it.
* The new version is still using custom GUI components, which makes it impossible to use any kind of common Windows keyboard shortcuts. This is a mayor annoyance to anybody using an external keyboard to enter a lot of texts and wanting to use the traditional Windows shortcuts to quickly navigate through / highlight / copy/cut/paste text in the text input components.
* On some Pocket PC's (for example, the Pocket Loox 720) the new version still uses non-proportional Courier New fonts in the address bar / in the tab titles. This is a minor annoyance, though.
* Unfortunately, the settings dialogs (screenshot 1 and 2) are as simple as in beta1. The latter, however, now has a new checkbox, " Set Opera as default browser", which makes it unnecessary to manually import a registry file (please see the articles in the Recommended links section for the registry import file I've created for beta1 to revert the default browser assignments) in order to revert back to using Pocket Internet Explorer (if you make Opera the default Web browser on your Pocket PC).
Nevertheless, the lack of detailed settings dialogs are not a problem – with manually editing (or, downloading my sample configuration files) the main configuration files of Opera, you can fine-tune it (scrollbar visibility, proxy usage, scroll behaviour etc).
* Under WM2003, Menu/Display/Landscape still doesn't rotate the viewport. Again, this would be pretty easy to implement because Opera, unlike for example the Pocket Internet Explorer (PIE) plug-ins or almost all ( uBook and Mobipocket Reader being the most important exceptions) e-book readers, doesn't need to rely on the Portrait-only, underlying PIE engine. This is a minor problem though and "only" affecting WM2003 users – screen rotation works great in post-WM2003 operating systems.
* Still no advanced context menus (copy link, save image), no in-page searching etc. These are, however, only minor annoyances, which don't have a negative effect on the browsing experience itself.
* Still no " One Column" view mode like that of PIE starting with WM2003SE or the PIE plug-in PIEPlus (see this review on the latest version of latter, including a detailed comparison of the "one column" modes offered by PIE and PIEPlus). This would be very useful to maximize the usage of the available screen estate on many pages; for example, the XDA-Dev forums (example screenshot of Opera 8.5b2 rendering the latter here – as can be seen, the useful contents of the page only occupies about 65-70% of the available horizontal screen estate. With a real "One Column" mode, it'd be close to 100%).
* Still no support for system-level favourites. This would also be really easy to implement as there's nothing particular about the .url files in \Windows\Favorites – they're really-really easy to process. (I'd say a hour's work for an average C++ programmer.)
Verdict
I can only use superlatives when speaking of this application. Despite its (still) missing functionalities, its speed and compatibility is just phenomenal.
Recommended links
The following articles/tips all discuss/are all related to the previous, beta 1 version. Note that some of their contents is now that they are fixed are outdated. They may still be worth checking out - particularly the ones on manually editing the Opera configuration files. You'll find a lot of information in these articles never published by anyone else.
ESSENTIAL (NEW, UNIQUE BUGFIXES!!!) to know about the great Web browser, Opera beta! - I haven't run into the same problem with the new Opera version – yet. This doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't exist any more – therefore, if the address bar auto-completion crashes your Pocket PC with beta2 too, make sure you read this article.
Modify the default scrolling behaviour of Pocket PC Web browsers. Note that even the beta 2 of Opera uses jump-by-link by default (on all operating systems, not just WM5), as far as its D-pad navigation is concerned; you will most probably want to override this and switch to the 'scroll a page at a time' behaviour. Note that the new scroll a page feature (invokable via the Space key) only works on devices with a built-in keyboard; for example, on the HTC Wizard (screenshot of Opera running on my HTC Wizard here).
Opera 8.5 beta on WM5 - it is certainly different from the WM2003(SE) version and is working GREAT!
WM5 compliance report: the bandwidth reduction service OnSpeed works pretty good; additional Toonel information – this article will be useful for everyone that wants to configure his or her Opera to access the Web sites through a HTTP proxy.
Pocket PC version of Famous Web Browser, Opera 8.5 beta Officially Released!

New Windows Mobile "Crossbow" reviews hit the 'Net

Gadget enthusiasts everywhere will be overjoyed that the long-awaited update to Windows Mobile is nearing release, and that reviews of the OS, codenamed "Crossbow," have been hitting the 'Net.
Crossbow is the code name for Windows Mobile 6.0, which we previewed last month. The OS features a new visual style evocative of Windows Vista, and some much-welcomed improvements to the kernel, including increased resource limits and a big jump in the maximum number of allowed simultaneous processes.
The review is mostly positive about the OS upgrade, although the reviewers take the stand that the new features don't necessarily warrant a full version upgrade designation. The major new features include better integration with Windows Live services (including Windows Live Messenger) and Microsoft's upcoming Office 2007 line of products (including Exchange 12). There are subtle changes as well: clicking on the standard close button (the X in a box in the upper right corner) for an application invokes a new "smart minimizing" feature where the OS itself decides whether a program should be shut down completely or remain active in memory.
The OS release also merges some features that formerly were found only on Windows for Smartphones, a specialized release of the Windows Mobile operating system. For example, smart dialing by searching quickly through contact lists is now part of Windows Mobile.
System requirements for 6.0 are the same as the previous version: 64 MB ROM/64 MB RAM and a 200MHz processor. Due to ongoing optimization efforts, the overall system speed of 6.0 is slightly faster than 5.0, which is always a nice surprise for any new OS release.
Overall, the new release looks fairly solid, especially for people who will be upgrading to Office 2007 or Exchange 12. However, some folks will prefer to wait for the "big" upgrade: Microsoft's unified mobile/smartphone OS project, codenamed "Photon," for which a release date has not yet been announced.
The above was taken from the WinBeta website. Here is the review, including some snapshots!
http://www.mobile-review.com/pda/articles/wm-crossbow-en.shtml
They promise some video clips displaying the operating system at work to be shown in 2 days time, so it might be worth keeping an eye on that if you are interested.

Pocket Programming Language 1.30 released!

ArianeSoft Inc's PPL 1.30 has finally been released!
The easiest Smartphone and PocketPC developement tool is now faster, slimmer, more stable and cheaper. Build amazing games and GUI applications for the Smartphone and PocketPC today.
PPL Profesional has a new low price of only $69.95 USD. The Standard version is $35.95 USD.
Get PPL Pro now http://store.esellerate.net/s.asp?s=STR5900755369&Cmd=BUY&SKURefnum=SKU92325858335
PPL 1.30 includes:
- Brand new installer that supports Smartphones, PocketPC and PC all in one.
- Brand new compiled file (.PPC) loader, which is a lot faster and requires less memory.
- Multiple control selection support in the PIDE visual form builder.
- Multi-layer alpha transparency support for sprites and surfaces.
- Many GameAPI enhancements, including fixes, optimizations, new functions and features.
- Support for PNG file format added on the PC and PocketPC.
- Tons of new integrated functions to simplify your life.
- SQLite v3 database engine support on PC and PocketPC.
- FMOD and BASS sound libraries support.
- New Phone API library to access Smartphone's features.
- Package file enhancements allow working directly from disk to save precious memory space.
- Huge compiler memory optimizations.
- Reduced footprint of each linked list element by more than 75%.
- New memory management functions for lighting fast allocation of small blocks of memory.
- Tons of bug fixes and other optimizations.
Download PPL 1.30 now http://arianesoft.ca/download.php?view.36
Learn more about PPL at http://www.arianesoft.ca/page.php?1 and visit our forums if you have questions http://www.arianesoft.ca/forum.php

What an advertisement...?

Keyone said:
What an advertisement...?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I doubt it, probably a subtle hint to guys like AC to try his slidelock program with the new version. There may be performance increases, as well as new functionality that his already great program might be able to take advantage of. Just a guess though.

Well don't forget, the famous slide 2 unlock application is created by using the ppl programming lanquage. So those wishing to tweak their own version of a s2u might be interested in using it with the available source code or other applications / games for their pocket pc for that matter.
sorry didn't see your post above nmeister.

What are the limitations of the trial version??

i already tried compiling slide2unlock with the latest beta version.. didn't solve the OS compatibility issues still

Tentative Project: E-mail client

Hi all
Thanks to this fantastic community, my WM6 user experience has considerably improved in the past few months; the only thing which tickles me a little is that there does not seem to be any project for a finger friendly, nicely animated E-mail client application.
Now google led me to this great article about the MAPI library, which provides an extended wrapper taking care of most of the functionalities of an e-mail client, not standalone per-say, but as kind of a proxy for outlook (i.e. pocket outlook). Now the good news is that the library supports C++, .NET and... the .net compact framework (with a little tweaking)!
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/IP/CMapiEx.aspx
I've tested it in Windows forms as well as in the .NETCF and it is really good.
Now the problem is that in .NET, I have no idea how to create finger-friendly forms.. I can recognize gestures to flip from one form to another, but the native controls themselves are ugly and not really customizable. They look really poor vs. the fantastic scrollable lists used by Chad, Tene etc. As for the animations, that's no problem.
So here are the questions:
- Anybody heard about 3rd party open source .netCF components such as listboxes, datagrids etc which support a high level of formatting, or native finger scrolling handling?
- If not, do we have any C++ developer here who could maybe take advantage of this library, or at least have a quick look?
Cheers

Smooth List box
Check out
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/list/SmoothListBox.aspx
I'm using it in a mixed c#/vb .net 2005 project, works like a champ. . .
the only thing I'd recommend is to use doublebuffering on any images, as they tend to flicker when you scroll.
If you have a compiled version of cemapi that'll work in cf2.0 let me know, I've been killing myself to find a control that will do a synchronize (like "Microsoft.WindowsMobile.PocketOutlook.MessagingApplication.Synchronize()") without actually launching the messaging app.
The only thing I've found so far is the mobile in the hand. . .but they want $300 for it. No more community edition in 3.0 (and the 2.0 community edition doesn't have synchronizing anyhow)