Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Developing a File Explorer for the Smartphone Using the .NET Compact Framework

This was an article I wrote for Pocket PC Magazine's (now known as Smartphone and Pocket PC Magazine) January 2005 issue. At that time, the version of Smartphone was 2003 and it did not come with a File Explorer. My article aimed to fill that void by showing readers how to build one themselves. And now that the latest version of Windows Mobile 6 Standard (aka Smartphone) comes with File Explorer, that article seems a bit redundant. Nevertheless, if you want to build a Windows-style Explorer, you can still gain something from my article. Additionally, this article is also useful for those of you wanting to know how to use the Treeview control to display hierarchical data.

Here is the synopsis of that article:

"Unlike the Pocket PC, the Smartphone 2003 platform does not come with a File Explorer for users to view the folders (and files) on the phone. This is perhaps due to the fact that Microsoft does not see the need for users to do this. However, it is often useful for developers to be able to view the directory structure of a Smartphone so that they can decide on which folders to use to store their applications and files. In this article, I will demonstrate how you can build a File Explorer for your Smartphone using the .NET Compact Framework. You will need to have Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 and the Smartphone 2003 SDK to do this. "

1 comment:

Sampath said...

Hi,

I used your code base in the above article to develop a file explorer in one of my smartphone apps.

However some users have reported an issue where the file explorer does not show the storage card, if there is one on the device. I am personally not albe to test this as I dont have a smartphone to test.

Would appreciate it greatly if you could give a pointer as to how I can display the files on the Storage card as well.

Cheers,
Sampath D.