Yesterday (Nov 19, 2008) we had a Microsoft developer event in Davao City.   More than 50 participants came and I’m honored to be able to share and present some new stuff on software development.

The two sessions were about Windows Mobile Development and ASP.NET Dynamic Data.

A good article regarding yesterday’s event can be found at the ITTalks.NET

Attendees can download the slides:  Windows Mobile and Dynamic Data.

One of the limited applications bundled in Windows Mobile is Pocket IE.   The websites and web applications accessed via Pocket IE has to be built for Pocket IE; with limited scripting functionality and should conform to the mobile device display.   Finally, Microsoft is releasing an enhanced version of Pocket IE called Internet Explorer Mobile 6 (IEM6).

IEM6 is based on the desktop Internet Explorer with features like;

• Desktop rendering engine.  You can now display web pages on the Windows Mobile with the same look, feel, and user experience as you see on a Windows Desktop!
• Support for Flash (using Flash Lite)
• Enhanced scripting (Jscript 5.7, finally!) and same scripting engine as IE8 – ability to run browser based scripts that before was only possible for the desktop and won’t work on the Windows Mobile device.
• AJAX sites supported!
• Touch and gesture control

IEM6 now supports the following:

• HTML 4.01
• XHTML 1 and XHTML 1.1 (partial)
• XHTML Mobile Profile (20011029)
• CSS 2.1 (partial) and CSS 3 (limited)
• DOM 1 (full), DOM 2 (partial), DOM 3 (limited)
• ECMAScript 3rd Edition

IEM6 still allows you to display pages, as mobile web pages, same as the previous release but the huge improvement is the ability to render the site that’s the same desktop and have all the features of the site available.  

IEM6 returns the following user agent settings (for developers, on detecting the type of browser accessing the site):

• If on desktop view, the browser returns Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)
• If on mobile view, the browser returns Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Window CE; IEMobile 8.12; MSIEMobile 6.0)

Mobile services integration.  Since most Windows Mobile devices are now integrated with a phone (Windows Mobile Professional and Windows Mobile Standard), you can access the phone services like send email messages, send sms messages, and make phone calls via IEM6.

Here’s a screenshot of IEM6 accessing youtube.com

Developers can now download Windows Mobile 6.1.4 emulator images to try out and develop for IEM6.  The URL for downloading the emulator images is available from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=1A7A6B52-F89E-4354-84CE-5D19C204498A&displaylang=en

The support for ActiveX is still limited and ActiveX components has to be installed on the mobile device separately (no cab download and install support yet).  This is still a big limitation of the browser.  However, the AJAX support has extended the use of the Windows Mobile device and makes Windows Mobile a real alternative to browsing and accessing web sites and web applications with the same user experience as the desktop.

The release of IEM6 on WM devices is scheduled before the end of 2008.  Expect newer devices soon with IEM6 built-in!

I’m invited to speak on two events;  one in Manila (Nov 17 at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, Podium 4,  RCBC Plaza, Ayala Avenue) and in Davao (Nov 19, at the Grand Menseng Hotel, Pichon St).   I’d like to invite everyone to attend these developer activities.   I’m speaking about Windows Mobile 6 development both in Manila and in Davao and on ASP.NET Dynamic Data as my second session in Davao.

I hope to see you there!  Cheers!