Only 2 Days Left…

Today’s application is CallBlock. It is designed to watch incoming calls, and check and see if they match any on the block phone numbers list. If they do match then the phone is “blocked”.

CallBlock

The first thing you should notice is the flashy logo at the top of the form. I create this logo with an online 3D logo generator. The one simple touch adds a lot of professional polish to the application. I really like red and white so I didn’t change the background color this time. But I am starting to wish I had. It seems a little “blah” to me now.

Next we have our phone number input text box. The user enters the phone number here, and presses the Block menu item to add it to the block number list below. On the main menu we also have options to Unblock, and Unblock All. And we have our almost universal About and Exit menu items.

There are two main pieces to this application. One part is the State and Notification Broker code to give us an event to catch incoming phone calls.

I actually got myself painted into a corner, I assumed you could just programmatically ignore of phone call but it isn’t that simple. Fortunately, a good friend of mine, Lou Vega, came up with a very slick workaround for this. And that is the second part which is the keybd_event method that allows us to send keypresses to the OS to Ignore the phone call.

CallBlock Core Code

   1: const int KEYEVENTF_KEYDOWN = 0x0;

   2: const int KEYEVENTF_KEYUP = 0x2;

   3:  

   4: [DllImport("coredll.dll", EntryPoint = "keybd_event", SetLastError = true)]

   5: internal static extern void keybd_event(byte bVk, byte bScan, int dwFlags, int dwExtraInfo);

   6:  

   7: SystemState phoneIncomingCall = new SystemState(SystemProperty.PhoneIncomingCall);

   8: private void frmMain_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

   9: {

  10:     phoneIncomingCall.Changed += new ChangeEventHandler(phoneIncomingCall_Changed);

  11: }

  12:  

  13: void phoneIncomingCall_Changed(object sender, ChangeEventArgs args)

  14: {

  15:     string phoneNumber = RemoveText(SystemState.PhoneIncomingCallerNumber);

  16:  

  17:     if(listBoxBlockedNumbers.Items.Contains(phoneNumber))

  18:     {

  19:         keybd_event(115, 0, KEYEVENTF_KEYDOWN, 0);

  20:         keybd_event(115, 0, KEYEVENTF_KEYUP, 0);

  21:     }

  22: }

Possibilities:

It would be easy to add support for blocking SMS text messages as well. We’ve done all the code for this already in previous applications. Also the application could really use a persistent data store to remember number to block in case the user closes the application. It would be nice to allow user formatting of entered phone numbers for increased readability.

Download executable: callBlock.cab

Download Source Code: callBlock.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!

So Page Brooks was talking with me earlier this week and he had a great idea for another Windows Mobile application. He wants an application that will repeat alerts for missed phones and text messages. I have to admit this is something I could use myself. So I figured I take a crack at it today, since it would make for a fun, simple, Friday app.

Repeatr

I decided to change up the naming format and play of the popular Web 2.0 naming conventions giving us the name: Repeatr. I have to admit, it is kind of catchy.

I searched for “Web 2.0 Logo Creator” and pretty much went with the first one I saw. This gave me a pretty slick logo in less than 5 minutes. I also decided to make the background a “tooltip” yellow, which I think looks really good.

Other than that everything is rather straight forward. We have checkboxes allowing the user to choose what events we will monitor. And we have a menu with a couple options, namely About and Exit. There is a “Clear Alerts” menu item, as well, that allows users to acknowledge they have responded to the alert(s).

The application allows user to select the number of minutes between alerts up to 60 minutes.

Of course we are using the State and Notification Broker to make all this happen. Using it means we hardly have to write any code ourselves!

State and Notification Broker setup code

   1: SystemState phoneMissedCalls = new SystemState(SystemProperty.PhoneMissedCalls);

   2: SystemState messagingSmsUnread = new SystemState(SystemProperty.MessagingSmsUnread);

   3: SystemState messagingTotalEmailUnread = new SystemState(SystemProperty.MessagingTotalEmailUnread);

   4: SystemState messagingVoiceMailTotalUnread = new SystemState(SystemProperty.MessagingVoiceMailTotalUnread);

   5:  

   6: private void frmMain_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

   7: {

   8:     phoneMissedCalls.Changed += new ChangeEventHandler(phoneMissedCalls_Changed);

   9:     messagingSmsUnread.Changed += new ChangeEventHandler(messagingSmsUnread_Changed);

  10:     messagingTotalEmailUnread.Changed += new ChangeEventHandler(messagingTotalEmailUnread_Changed);

  11:     messagingVoiceMailTotalUnread.Changed += new ChangeEventHandler(messagingVoiceMailTotalUnread_Changed);

  12: }

The way we alert a user to having missed a monitored event is by playing a sounds which is easy to do.

   1: [DllImport("aygshell.dll")]

   2: static extern uint SndPlaySync(string pszSoundFile, uint dwFlags);

   3:  

   4: void PlaySound()

   5: {

   6:     string path;

   7:     path = Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().CodeBase);

   8:  

   9:     SndPlaySync(Path.Combine(path, "alert.wma"), 0);

  10: }

Other than a little plumbing to make everything work together that is basically the entire app in a nutshell.

Possibilities:

This is a pretty spiffy application. But software can always be better. An option to allow the phone to vibrate would be great. Another option to allow the user to select the alert sound would be nice too.

Download executable: repeatr.cab

Download Source Code: repeatr.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!

4 Days left…

Today on twitter, Glen Gordon was telling me that Brendon Schwartz had an idea for today’s application:

glengordon @cjcraft here's an idea for a mobile app that @brendonschwartz will like - record $ spent during the day and where it was spent (with GPS) about 13 hours ago from Witty in reply to CJCraft

It’s a really good idea. Probably a better idea than we will be able to do it tonight, but we are all about taking the first small steps to accomplishing great things.

GeoCash

I love the name, it is a play on GeoCaching. Somehow it adds a lot of “buzz” to the application already.

The application is designed to be easy for the user to use and understand. The user only needs to enter the amount they spent along with a note, and then simply press log and it will be added to the GeoCash log.

We are using our own NumericTextBox to be sure the user doesn’t enter in any invalid amounts spent. We have another standard TextBox for the note input. Below this we have the log information. This is done using a WebBrowser control, and setting its DocumentText property.

The main reason to use the WebBrowser control is to be able to do a little better text formatting. This allowed us to easily markup our text in bold and color.

 

HTML formatted output:

   1: sb.AppendFormat(@"<b>Date:</b> {0}", DateTime.Now).Append("<br/>");

   2: sb.AppendFormat(@"<b>Amount:</b> <span style=""color:red"">{0:c}</span>", decimal.Parse(textBoxAmountSpent.Text)).Append("<br/>");

   3: sb.AppendFormat(@"<b>Note:</b> {0}", textBoxNote.Text).Append("<br/>");

   4: sb.AppendFormat(@"<b>Latitude:</b> {0}", position.Latitude).Append("<br/>");

   5: sb.AppendFormat(@"<b>Longitude:</b> {0}", position.Longitude).Append("<br/>");

   6: sb.Append("<br/>");

   7:  

   8: documentText += sb.ToString();

   9: webBrowser.DocumentText = documentText;

Possibilities:

I love this app. It has so many cool possibilities. You could easily save this information to a text file or sent it as an email. I think this is perfect data to do a mashup on for example create a heatmap etc for it so you can see the “dangerous” side of town you need to avoid taking your money into from now on.

Download executable: geoCash.cab

Download Source Code: geoCash.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!

5 Days Left…

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!

Today I am in Atlanta, GA with Brian Hitney and Glen Gordon. We are presenting Mobility Roadshow: Programming for Windows Mobile. We had a long drive last night, and will have another long drive back to Florence, SC tonight. So I choose not bite off anything too intense today.

Many people today carry mini-flashlights on the end of their key chain. Apparently there is a need for this type of device because many stores sell them near the cash registers in the checkout lines. I wonder why these mini-flashlights are so popular when almost everyone has a mobile phone today. Maybe it is because the phone’s back light is not bright enough.

Hmm, this got me thinking. Most Windows Mobile devices have large powerful screens, maybe there is a way we could reuse our device as both a mobile phone and a mini-flashlight.

Mobile Flashlight

The UI is simple but the task is simple. I considered using a watermark image for the background or add a gradient to the background. With a goal of having as much of the screen as bright as possible I think the simple solid color background was the choice to make.

We only have a few menu options: Burn, Menu, Settings, About, and Exit. I decided to use the term “Burn” like you see on road sign saying “Motorcycles must burn lights”. We only have a few screens: Main, Settings, About. The settings screen you should see to the left, and the main screen should be to the right of this text.

On the about screen we let the user choose the color they would like the screen to “burn” at. By default we have chosen white to maximize brightness.

We used NumericUpDown controls to maximize usability, this allows user to choose the soft input panel or the control directly to set the color amounts.

Save Color Values

   1: int red = (int) numericUpDownRed.Value;

   2: int green = (int) numericUpDownGreen.Value;

   3: int blue = (int) numericUpDownBlue.Value;

Get Color Values

   1: numericUpDownRed.Value = (int) Global.Color.R;

   2: numericUpDownGreen.Value = (int) Global.Color.G;

   3: numericUpDownBlue.Value = (int) Global.Color.B;

Possibilities:

The biggest need this application has is a way for the user to save their color preference. Right now if the application is closed the color will go back to the default color of white. Another great feature would be to make the application to go full screen and hide both the title bar and the menu. One last addition would be code to maximize the screen brightness setting in Control Panel.

Download executable: mobileFlashlight.cab

Download Source Code: mobileFlashlight.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!

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:

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

I have put together a calendar of applications for the 30 Days of .NET [Windows Mobile Applications]. Here you can get a quick feel for all the applications we’ve created so far, and will write in the coming days.

30 Days of .NET Windows Mobile Applications

Yeah, we have made it through week three of my 30 Days of .NET challenge. So far, we have 22 applications for 22 days. Thanks for your support!

If you missed the week one recap here it is: 30 Days of .NET [Windows Mobile Applications] - Week One.

If you missed the week two recap here it is: 30 Days of .NET [Windows Mobile Applications] - Week Two.

What’s your favorite?

Mobile SMS Remote	SMS Logger	Lunch-O-Matic	Mobile Weather

We get around, don’t we? SMS, RSS, GPS, Camera API, and more!

Mobile Speedometer	Mobile Altimeter	Mobile Sketcher	What will be next?

Feedback:

Got an idea? Got some feedback? Share it? Thanks!

I couldn’t resist creating another GPS related mobile application. One of the neat pieces of data you get from your GPS device is time. This is great. It is like having one of the clocks that can update itself over the air by reading data transmitted from various atomic clocks throughout the world. Many phones today have the ability to update their time by connecting to the OEM’s time servers, but not all. And there are still lots of Windows Mobile classic devices in the world that do not have cellular capabilities.

Vista has the ability to update its time by using a feature called Internet Time. Basically Vista connects to time.windows.com and reads a Network Time Protocol server.

GPS Clock

Our user interface is simple and direct. We are using a nice graphic to adds some visual zing to the application. At the top of the screen we show the user their current device time and their current GPS time.

This allows the user to tell at a glance if they need to update their device’s time using the Update menu option.

On the menu we have added some simple settings features: GPS Start, GPS Stop, About, and Exit.

This is one of those Web 2.0 ideas where an application does one thing but does it very well. Sometimes these are the best apps. In this case, our application provides a bride for GPS time data to become device time data.

Somtimes that’s all it takes to make a user happy.

UpdateData Method:

   1: void UpdateData(object sender, System.EventArgs args)

   2: {

   3:     if (gps.Opened)

   4:     {

   5:         if (position != null)

   6:         {

   7:             if (position.TimeValid)

   8:             {

   9:                 gpsTime = position.Time;

  10:  

  11:                 labelCurrentGpsDate.Text = gpsTime.ToLongDateString();

  12:                 labelCurrentGpsTime.Text = gpsTime.ToLongTimeString();

  13:             }

  14:         }

  15:     }

  16: }

UpdateTime Method:

   1: private struct SYSTEMTIME

   2: {

   3:     public short Year;

   4:     public short Month;

   5:     public short DayOfWeek;

   6:     public short Day;

   7:     public short Hour;

   8:     public short Minute;

   9:     public short Second;

  10:     public short Milliseconds;

  11: }

  12:  

  13: [DllImport("coredll.dll")]

  14: private static extern bool SetSystemTime(ref SYSTEMTIME time);

  15:  

  16: private void UpdateTime()

  17: {

  18:     DateTime idag = gpsTime.ToUniversalTime();

  19:  

  20:     SYSTEMTIME s = new SYSTEMTIME();

  21:     s.Year = (short) idag.Year;

  22:     s.Month = (short) idag.Month;

  23:     s.DayOfWeek = (short) idag.DayOfWeek;

  24:     s.Day = (short) idag.Day;

  25:     s.Hour = (short) idag.Hour;

  26:     s.Minute = (short) idag.Minute;

  27:     s.Second = (short) idag.Second;

  28:     s.Milliseconds = (short) idag.Millisecond;

  29:  

  30:     SetSystemTime(ref s);

  31: }

Possibilities:

How about changing the color of the date and time if they are more than five minutes off? Simple feature to add but really helps the user. And that’s what matters.

Download executable: gpsClock.cab

Download Source Code: gpsClock.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!

The main goal of 30 Days of .NET was to create a series of applications, any of which, a reader could take and use as a springboard to creating their first application. Well that, and to have some fun along the way and get more people excited about mobile development. A secondary goal of mine has been to show off various capabilities of mobile devices like GPS, Bluetooth, and multimedia features. One feature we haven’t covered so far is using a built-in camera.

Today we will mark that item off our list…

Mobile Sketcher

The goal is to create a basic drawing application, but add a mobile twist to it. On the menu, I have added a menu item for selecting a picture using the select picture dialog. The nice thing about the select picture dialog is it allows you to use your camera to take a picture and then select it as your picture.

In a way this application is a lot like the mobile signature capture application we did a while back, but there are some important differences: picture selection support, camera support, save file dialog support, and more. The business case for this application is something like the following: an insurance agent arrives on the scene of an automotive accident, she takes a picture using Mobile Sketcher and then adds notes and sketches to the picture for claims processing.

So users can select a picture from their device or take a picture and use it for their background. And then they can draw and edit the picture using Mobile Sketcher. At the bottom of the screen we allow user to select different colors for the pen’s ink: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, brown, white, and black. Well okay, white is really a light gray since white on white is hard to see.

SelectPicture Method:

   1: private void SelectPicture()

   2: {

   3:     SelectPictureDialog selectPictureDialog = new SelectPictureDialog();

   4:     DialogResult dialogResult = selectPictureDialog.ShowDialog();

   5:  

   6:     if (dialogResult != DialogResult.OK)

   7:         return;

   8:  

   9:     pictureBox.Image = new Bitmap(selectPictureDialog.FileName);

  10: }

Possibilities:

There is lots of room for improvement with this application. Just think of all the features most drawing programs have and there’s your list for improvements.

Download executable: mobileSketcher.cab

Download Source Code: mobileSketcher.zip

Feedback:

Want more? What else would you like to see? The managed API for using a Window Mobile camera is a great feature that is very powerful and very easy. Use it in your next mobile application or your first.

Yesterday, I had a really hard time between choosing to do a Mobile Speedometer or a Mobile Altimeter. But another day gives us another opportunity, and today we shall create the Mobile Altimeter.

Mobile Altimeter

This will make the third application in the 30 Days of .NET series that has had targeted GPS capabilities. We have created a compass, a speedometer, and now a altimeter. And there are still dozens of applications we could create with the GPS capabilities of Windows Mobile.

This time I decided to a little more with the UI. We have a background that symbolizes “altitude” which is appealing to end users. Plus it gives the program a lot of style and class. On the left side of the screen if you look carefully, you will notice we have an attitude ruler, which has a marker that rises one pixel for every foot higher the device travels up to 180 feet.

This simple feature really takes our application up to the next level. :D (Yeah, I know: I’m terrible.)

At the bottom of the screen we are allowing the user to read all the main stats off the GPS so the application is even more useful. We show altitude in a large bold font in the middle of the screen for impact.

The main event: UpdateData

   1: void UpdateData(object sender, System.EventArgs args)

   2: {

   3:     if (gps.Opened)

   4:     {

   5:         if (position != null)

   6:         {

   7:             if (position.SeaLevelAltitudeValid)

   8:             {

   9:                 labelAltitude.Text = position.SeaLevelAltitude.ToString("0.00ft");

  10:                 if (position.SeaLevelAltitude >= 0 && position.SeaLevelAltitude <= 180)

  11:                     pictureBoxArrow.Top = 173 - (int) position.SeaLevelAltitude;

  12:                 else

  13:                     pictureBoxArrow.Top = 173;

  14:             }

  15:         }

  16:     }

  17: }

Possibilities:

I think a more realistic UI would be a great improvement. And the ability to switch from miles to kilometers would be good too. If the odometer would track miles traveled that would be an awesome enhancement.

Download executable: mobileAltimeter.cab

Download Source Code: mobileAltimeter.zip

Feedback:

Want more? What else would you like to see? There’s been a lot of demand for GPS related applications. Does that help?

After the last GPS related application, GPS Compass, I’ve been wanting to do another GPS focused application. This time I figured we’d get in the driver’s seat with our friend: SPEED.

Gentlemen, start your engines…

Mobile Speedometer

The application is built off of  Windows Mobile 6 SDK included a GPS Application in the samples folder, C:\Program Files\Windows Mobile 6 SDK\Samples\PocketPC\CS\GPS.

This uses the GPS Intermediate Driver. If you are writing a location aware application for Windows Mobile this is definitely the way to go. ;)

The main UI is located at the top of the screen. We have a simple speedometer graphic in the background to add some flair to the application. On top of this we overlay the current speed based off of information returned from the GPS device. We can also use Fake GPS to simulate a GPS device.

Below this we have a readout of various GPS statistics that are updated continuously.

One thing to note is Speed may be return in knots which you will likely want to convert to either miles or kilometers.

We just need to create a method something like UpdateData below.

   1: void UpdateData(object sender, System.EventArgs args)

   2: {

   3:     if (gps.Opened)

   4:     {

   5:         if (position != null)

   6:         {

   7:             if (position.SpeedValid)

   8:             {

   9:                 labelSpeed.Text = (position.Speed/1.15077945).ToString("0.00");

  10:             }

  11:          }

  12:      }

  13: }

Possibilities:

I think a more realistic UI would be a great improvement. And the ability to switch from miles to kilometers would be good too. If the odometer would track miles traveled that would be an awesome enhancement.

Download executable: mobileSpeedometer.cab

Download Source Code: mobileSpeedometer.zip

Feedback:

Want more? What else would you like to see?