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So when you are talking Windows Mobile Applications you are usually talking about a cell phone device. We have looked at text messages using SMS, but one thing we haven’t look at so far is programmatically making phone calls. Today we will take a look at creating our own phone dialer application. It’s easier than you think!

SmartDial

I think the UI is pretty nice, not the best, but good overall. It is bright and clean. I found a web site that allowed me to create buttons in a snap and used it for the numbers. At the top of the screen, I added a label to display the number to dial. The menu only has a few options: Dial, Menu, Clear, About, and Exit.

Since we only allow users to enter numbers using our custom buttons, we don’t have to worry about anyone entering invalid characters.

So how much code did we as Windows Mobile application developers have to write to actually dial a number? See for yourself.

   1: private void Dial()

   2: {

   3:     new Phone().Talk(labelPhoneNumber.Text);

   4: }

Possibilities:

I think this has the potential to be an absolutely great application. One thing I think would be cool is if the application supported skinning. In a way it does, since I decided to leave the image resources as external files to the executable. So a user could edit any of the files themselves. Another great enhancement would be to have mousedown images for each button to give a nice “animated” touch to the application. What about quick soft sounds for when each button is pressed?

Download executable: smartDial.cab

Download Source Code: smartDial.zip

Feedback:

Want more? What else would you like to see? Time’s running out on submitting ideas. Be sure to get yours in soon!