hSenid's blog on Outsourcing

On Windows CE using the standard graphical shell, the screen layout is similar to a desktop computer that runs the Windows operating system, as shown in figure. The taskbar is along the bottom of the screen, and each time you start an application its icon appears in the taskbar. The Start button is lower left, and the menus open upward from the lower left. As on desktop computers, a single click or tap with the stylus selects a menu item. To start a program from an icon displayed on the desktop, you must tap twice with the stylus (the equivalent of a double click with a mouse). When an application runs, it does not necessarily run in full-screen mode. Also, in Windows CE, application windows typically include the Close button (cross) and the Minimize button. On Pocket PCs, you never see a Minimize button, and if there is a Close button, it actually works as a “Smart Minimize” button and not a Close button.

figure: The Windows CE standard shell

Remember that the Windows CE shell described here is only one of potentially many options you may encounter if you develop applications for hardware that runs Windows CE. A Windows CE-based platform can have its own unique shell that is developed and customized for a device and its target audience, which supplies a different user interaction experience from the one described here.

If it is your job to select the platform to use on devices for a new project, you may be confused about which one you want. The choice is relatively simple. If you are writing applications for a device with telephone capability that does not have a stylus and that can be operated one-handed from the keypad, Smartphone (or, to use the modern terminology, Windows Mobile 6 Standard) is the correct choice. If you are writing for custom hardware, obviously you must use Windows CE.

The choice between using Pocket PC (now called Windows Mobile 6 Classic or Professional) and Windows CE can be a little more complicated. Most of the large enterprise mobile device manufacturers, such as Intermec and Symbol, offer Pocket PC-style devices that come with a choice of Windows Mobile or Windows CE running on identical hardware. The implementation of Windows CE used on these devices usually uses the standard graphical Windows-style shell (one of the components included in Platform Builder) so that devices from different manufacturers tend to give a similar user experience.

When you compare the way the standard Windows CE shell works to the way the Windows Mobile for Pocket PC shell works, you see the obvious difference is in the screen layout and the way you start programs. On Pocket PC, the Start button is at the top, and menus are displayed from the upper-left corner downward, as shown in figure below.

To select a menu item, you tap once with the stylus. All applications running on a Pocket PC display objects in full-screen mode (except for a very few types of pop-up dialog boxes).

Literals provide a simple method of defining strings in a program. They can be defined and used as follows:

_LIT(KMyName, “Helen”);

TBuf<KMaxItemLength> myName;

myName.Append(KMaxItemLength);

Literals are easily changed if they are situated at the top of a .cpp file, just like macro definitions. The predecessor to _LIT was _L; you may see it being used as:

myName.Append(_L(“Helen”));

_L can still be used in test programs (non-release versions) where clarity is more important than efficiency but it has now been deprecated as _LIT is more efficient. The string supplied to _LIT is stored once per unit of compilation (.cpp file) unlike the string supplied to _L, which is inserted in the code each time it is used. Therefore _LIT consumes less memory if the string is used more than once and its use is encouraged by Symbian in creating memory-efficient applications.