WinCE

[Sandeep Chandra]

Hi

I just want to know if there is designer support for WinCE in Lazarus. If not will it be available in future?

Is there any advantage in using Lazarus for WinCE compared to using Compact Framework?

I have to develop an application for WinCE and I would like as much information as possible to make the right decision.
The application will need to read and update data from PostgresSql server. How would I do this? Could I use Zeoslib or anything else or would I have to use web service?

Thanks in advance.

Regards

Sandeep

[felipemdc]

The form designer works fully with Windows CE. In fact, Lazarus is probably the first Windows CE RAD =)

After some configuration you can even debug via Active Sync from the IDE =)

The documentation is here: http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/Windows_CE_Interface

What is missing on Lazarus is making the configuration to use Windows CE shorter. i.e. make Lazarus come with more things pre-configured for Windows CE. We are working on it.

> Is there any advantage in using Lazarus for WinCE compared to using Compact Framework?

Depends on what kind of software you are creating. End user software and enterprise software have very different needs. Some general things bellow:

.NET does not come preinstalled on most PocketPCs, your users must install it, and that makes the install process harder. Lazarus produces native code for Windows CE, i.e. a stand alone executable. Also I don´t know which WindowsCE versions are supported by CF.

Acording to the Debian benchmark, Free Pascal uses 15 times less memory, and is 15 times faster to solve the same problem as .NET (ok, this is on Linux, but on Windows the result is the same. google for some benchmarks):

http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/gp4/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=csharp&lang2=fpascal

> The application will need to read and update data from PostgresSql server. How would I do this? Could I use Zeoslib or anything else or would I have to use web service?

I assume the server is remote, right?

In this case you need to use web services techniques.

More info here: http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/Networking#WebServices

[Anonymous]

Thanks for replying.

When could I expect Lazarus release to come fully configured to work for WinCE?

Is it possible to use Indy controls for WebServices with Lazarus?

Regards

Sandeep

[felipemdc]

When could I expect Lazarus release to come fully configured to work for WinCE?

Ummm .... this is hard to guess. We should have snapshots pre-configured for Windows CE not too long in the future. Something like 3 months at worse. But then it must be stable, not just be there, so I would say at least 6 months for stabilization and solving bugs that appear.

The more people use and contribute to it, the less bugs it will have, the more stable it becomes, and the more usefull it becomes.

Is it possible to use Indy controls for WebServices with Lazarus?

Yes it is.

[Anonymous]

Where could I download the WinCE stuff with form Designer support. Is there a step by step guide to use from designer for WinCE.
Is there any forum for using Lazarus and WinCE?

Regards

Sandeep

[felipemdc]

There is nothing special about using the form designer for Windows CE projects. Just any visually designed project you have should work for Windows CE. Ok, you will want to make the form much smaller =) or else it won't fit the screen of a PocketPC.

What is special is the build process. There is a step-by-step tutorial for getting the windows ce build environment ready here:

http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/Windows_CE_Interface#Setting_Up_the_Windows_CE_interface

The first step on this tutorial sends you to another page, so you can build a cross-compiler. Basically you need to have Free Pascal 2.0.2 installed on your computer, and you will use it to compile the subversion compiler to create a compiler that can generate WinCE executables from a Windows machine.

Here is tutorial about how to do this: http://www.freepascal.org/wiki/index.php/WinCE_port#Building_Tutorial

Also, you may want to use the subversion version of Lazarus, because it contains bug fixes and improvements for windows ce not on the stable releases yet.

Just follow the steps on both tutorials carefully. After this, it should just work =)

There is currently no special forum for Lazarus and Windows CE, maybe we should create one.

The mailling list can be a good place to ask for information for windows ce, but so is here.

[Anonymous]

Hi

Is it possible for the Lazarus team to create an Install for WinCE stuff so that people like me can start testing it. The manual way to setup is too hard and time consuming. I have tried it but just can't seem to get the thing to work.

I would have liked to start testing stuff now but I think I'll wait until the install is ready.

Regards

Sandeep

[Anonymous]

Just wondering if anyone noticed my last post.

Regards

Sandeep

[Vincent Snijders]

Yes, I noticed. Good to know that there is at least one person willing to test such a package.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for replying. I really want to start using this and see if I can use it to write applications.

Regards

Sandeep

[btrewern]

I'd love to test an install which included WinCE support.  Sounds really useful.

Ben

[Vincent Snijders]

It will be a seperate installer.

[Sandeep Chandra]

I know I have asked this before but was just wondering about the progress on WinCE stuff with Lazarus. What controls have been developed and is there a roadmap yet?

Regards

Sandeep

[Vincent Snijders]

For a roadmap see wiki.