The quagmire that is eVB, eVC, C, C++, .NET ...

[SteveHoward999]

I am looking for some advice and assistance in making the right choice for developing an application for PPC.

First a little background - I am a multimedia developer and have been for about 8 years. I am an experienced programmer, but I am a total novice when it comes to Win32 development. I need to produce something for my Masters theses that will run on a PPC. I have the experience to build most of what I need using Macromedia's Flash, but I must have a lower-level layer to communicate with a software API that contains functionality Flash just cannot do.

So - I get the SDK and the help files. Help files say it has SDK for C, C++ and VB for WinCE. I presume at this point that WinCE is intended as a generic term that includes PocketPC - since I made it clear I am developing for PPC ;-)

All the info I have says that if I am developing for Windows Mobile 2003 I should be using .NET. Windows Mobile 5 is absolutely NOT in the equation here.

Obviously that leaves me with the various language flavours in .NET ... but what about my special API (it's for voice recognition and text to speech) - will it simply work with .NET, or am I going to run into problems?

If I am going to run into problems, then should I just bite the bullet and use eVB or similar? If so, then where on earth can I get the eVB toolkit, as I have not been able to track it down on MSDN ... I never manage to find what I need there :-(

Yes I can ask the developers of the API and the SDK -and in fact I have - but they are slow to respond and I would like an answer now if possible, becuase I am impatient, late in getting started with the development cycle and impatient. Did I mention I am impatient?


TIA

[Nurhisham Hussein]

I'm not a developer, but I have been reading a bit about PPC app development and just like to add my 2 cents. eVB should not be your first choice - eVB was dropped by MS in WM2003 onwards, although apps written in eVB will still run if you load the appropriate runtimes to your machine. For .Net, you'll need your API to be able to work with .Net Compact Framework which is a subset of .Net - in other words it won't necessarily run if it's just .Net compliant. If you need low level access to hardware, eVC++ is probably your best bet.

[Nurhisham Hussein]

For eVB:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=f663bf48-31ee-4cbe-aac5-0affd5fb27dd&displaylang=en

You can add the 2003 SDK on top of this IIANM.

For eVC++:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=1dacdb3d-50d1-41b2-a107-fa75ae960856&languageid=f49e8428-7071-4979-8a67-3cffcb0c2524&displaylang=en

and the latest service pack (SP4):

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=4a4ed1f4-91d3-4dbe-986e-a812984318e5&displaylang=en

For resources (also eVC++):

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=F4328333-0FD4-4348-88C0-39D10FB64F0A&displaylang=en

[SteveHoward999]

eVB should not be your first choice - eVB was dropped by MS in WM2003 onwards, although apps written in eVB will still run

Yes I know about this - but thanks for your comments! Also thanks for the links - I have no idea why I can never find anythiing on MSDN, I trhink it knows it's me ;-)


Does anyone have an answer to my question? Will an API writen for pre-.NET software work with .NET?

[Kowalski]

Does anyone have an answer to my question? Will an API writen for pre-.NET software work with .NET?
yes, you can call native api functions from your .net application using the dllimport directive.

using c# and .net platform will be the best choice in your situation. It is true that .net applications are slower than native applications when it comes to wimdows mobile platform, but keep in mind that win32 programming (using c++) needs experience, patience and skill.

i dont recommend using any kind of basic language on any platform. eVb is as slow as a .net application but you wont have the versatility and power of .net platform, so forget about basic.

if you have further questions about using native api functions, i will give you some links or examples to clear out your questions

[SteveHoward999]

I finally got a response form the creators of the custom API. They sent me additional help files and a custom functions that make it possible for me to use C# or VB.NET ... yaay.



if you have further questions about using native api functions, i will give you some links or examples to clear out your questions



Thanks - right now I need all the good pointers I can get. Anything that will make figuring this out easier will be a huge help - as will anything that will help me pick up C#.

Something where the author types slowley and never used more than two syllables will be just perfect ;-)