Information is power. And with the .NET Compact Framework we can have all the information we want. Windows Mobile has many ways to get details about the device our application is running on. Hands down my favorite is the State and Notification Broker. In a word it ROCKS! You can use it to find out any number of things and you can use it to notify us when information we care about change state.
There are pieces of information that are so important in their own right, they could be used to create an application just to monitor and read that one detail. The first one that comes to mind is battery state.
MobileInfo
I thought of a few ways I could make this application flashy, but decided that might get in the way of the facts. Sometimes a simple notepad like application is the most beautiful application. Form and function were meant to be together, but sometimes forms steals the show, and function is what everyone came to see.
So instead we have a WebBrowser control with a simple text listing of the device’s most important details. I decided to use a WebBrowser control in case I ever did want to use more advanced text format.
We stick to our guns about keeping control simple and intuitive. We have a great menu with only a few options: Refresh, About, and Exit.
RefreshData Method
1: private void RefreshData()
2: {
3: StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
4:
5: sb.Append("<b>Active Application:</b>").Append("<br/>");
6: sb.AppendFormat("'{0}'", SystemState.ActiveApplication).Append("<br/>").Append("<br/>").Append("<br/>");
7:
8: ...
9: }
Possibilities:
You can never have too much of a good thing. We have twenty pieces of information here for users to enjoy. How about a hundred? Or how about a quick and easy search bar? And the UI needs to be simple but it could be better.
Download executable: mobileInfo.cab
Download Source Code: mobileInfo.zip
Feedback:
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