Pocket PC Creations software has wide application for both industry and the community, some of the scope is indicated on the Projects page of this web site.. 

Control

Projects are created with the Pocket PC Creations open on a Windows desktop or laptop PC. The Control Menu presents as:

Project covers the key functional areas. Each of which will be covered in this tutorial. The major functional components are:

• Properties - Properties, including read/write control, and wireless

• Design - Project Pages (Add, Edit, Delete), Points (Add, Edit, Delete)

• Install - Install projects to Pocket PC

• Synchronise - Synchronising data between Pocket PC and desktop

• Database - View, Export to Excel, HTML, XML, Export to Databases (eg SQL Server, Access, Oracle etc) via ADO.

• New Session - Opens a project Session on the desktop PC or 'Local' computer. The contents of the Session can be sent to a Pocket PC, either by ActiveSync or wirelessly. Session can also be used to explore the information management power of Pocket PC Creations without a Pocket PC.

Adding Pages and Points are the main tasks in creating a Project.

Project   

Properties   

To create a project, New... is selected from the File menu. Pocket PC Creations asks for a filename for the new project, and assigns a .ppc file extension.

Following this, the Project Properties window appears with the opportunity to fill in the appropriate fields. The project properties are for information only, with the exception of the Title, which will be used to identify this project to the user. 

Note that in Options the default setting is to both read and write to the project after a user session; when the box is checked to Read Only changes cannot be made to results collected in the field. Options also presents the opportunity to enable wireless communications, which is set by default. Session List Columns enables the selection of a point/s from which data will be presented in the Session Window on the Pocket PC to identify particular sessions, alongside the date and time of the session.  The windows on the Pocket PC can be widened to see data, and sorted by tapping the top of the column/s. Note, the Lite edition can display data from a point with the name "SessionName" (default for all editions).

The Visual Style tab allows the visual style of the project to be modified (see below). Pocket PC Creations provides a default colour scheme and graphics set, but these can be replaced with a custom design. Custom visual styles consist of a set of colours, fonts and graphics that are used to display pages, and are stored within the project file. When replacing the default graphics, ensure the JPG or bitmap image used for the page header is 240 pixels wide (but may be up to 480 pixels for use on Desktop, Tablet and Notebook PCs), and 40 to 50 pixels high so it fills the required area on screen. The page background pattern will be tiled vertically down the page, and can be any width and height.

Licence enables presentation of the licensing conditions for the project, see below. An important facility for commercial developers of Pocket PC Creations projects for sale.  Lock Project secures a projects design so that it can neither be seen nor amended. There are a number of cautionary steps to Lock a project, most importantly, a separate copy of the unlocked project must be retained by the author. While one of the features of Pocket PC Creations is the ease with which projects can be amended, sometimes it may be desirable to prevent amendments by parties other than the author/developer.  

Design    

Next, double clicking the Design icon causes the Design Window to appear. A project will be empty to begin with, but once created, this is what the design area will look like. Features of the three panelled Design Window are:

• the left panel shows the Pages contained in the Project;

• the central panel is a WYSIWYG preview ('what you see is what you get') of the Project Pages being created, showing the page highlighted/selected in the left panel;  

• the right panel shows the Point types and titles on the selected page; 

• the bottom toolbar is a quick link to design functions; and

• the design settings can be managed via top toolbar, Edit and Design Settings.

Design - Page

Clicking the Add Page button on the Design window (at the bottom) causes a dialog box to appear prompting for details. The title for the new page - "Location and Test" is entered. Avoid using long page titles, as they don't wrap down a line. If required, introductory text can be added, and the Guidance field in the dialog box can be used to enter information to guide or 'help' the user of the project page in the field. If guidance support is provided with the project points described below, it can be helpful to copy it onto the page guidance field for quick reference.

The Guidance area on a page can be accessed by a tap on the squares in the top left corner of the page. Text cannot be added to the Guidance area from the Pocket PC, it must be added or amended in the Project Design phase. Guidance can be formatted by a limited subset of HTML, for bold (b), underline (u) and headings (h1); headings reflect the Visual Style for page Title.

Design - Point

Clicking Add Point button on the Design window (at the bottom) causes the list of point functions to appear. Click checkbox to show full range of point types.

Design - Point - Properties

Clicking one of the Point Types causes the appearance of a Point Properties dialog box. Point Properties provides three components:

• General -  a Caption for the point, and unique ID Name derived from the Caption, this is important for managing results, duplications are not accepted within a project so a little creativity may be required in describing points. The Caption and ID Name do not have to be the same. The Caption can be dynamically expanded by parsing from a point on another page using <%OtherPointID%>, the Captions will then present what is entered in the other point. Visible on Page and Include in Results are default functions, but can be varied depending on the project. Visible on Page is particularly important for Conditional Logic (see Page 3). Retain Session Value enables the value of the point(s) to become the default for new sessions, until the project is closed on the Pocket PC, a time saver in the field;

• Function - Drop List in this case below, other options are Boolean, Selection, Edit, Timestamp, Outlook, Math, Sketch, Link, Layout, Logic, File, UltraDrop and Custom. Each are described on the next page; and

• Guidance - the opportunity to include guidance on use of the information collection point.