Introduction to .Net Mobile

As .Net Framework helps you to create web applications so that users can access it from anywhere from their laptops or desktops, .Net Mobile, which is an extension to .Net Framework and ASP.NET, also allows you to develop applications that can be accessed and used from any mobile device such as Palm Pilot, Pocket PC, and Auto PC. These applications are called mobile web applications.

The biggest disadvantage with building mobile applications is that different mobile devices support different platforms and programming languages. For example some devices support Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) and Wireless Markup Language (WML) and there are some devices which support only Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and there are some devices that support both of these.

.Net Mobile is the new platform by Microsoft to develop mobile applications in Compact Hypertext Markup Language (cHTML), WML, or HTML. This provides .Net Mobile web applications to be accessed by devices that include WAP phones, Handhelds, Personal Digital Assistant (PDAs), and pagers. In addition, .Net Mobile is a set of web form controls that run on server-side. To create mobile applications in .Net Mobile, first you have to install .Net Framework and then install Microsoft Mobile Internet Toolkit (MMIT).

This toolkit consists of additional classes, controls, designers, and templates. First the user requests for a web page. The request is passed on through Internet to Internet Information Service (IIS) and then handled by .Net Framework. After the requested page is compiled by ASP.NET, .Net Mobile takes care of the mobile device requirements and the compiled page is then again passed on to the client. Unlike an ASP.NET web page that is inherited from System.Web.UI.Page, the mobile web page in .Net Mobile is inherited from System.Web.UI.MobileControls.MobilePage. The most important advantage of developing mobile web applications using Mobile Internet Toolkit is the rapid application approach for GUI that shares a common code base.

| How to Parse an XML Document using DOM | Understanding Code Management in .NET | Understanding Enterprise Transaction Services in .NET | Understanding .NET Interface-Based Programming | Understanding Security Management in Web Services | Understanding SOAP Message and Delivery Structure | Understanding the Basics of Language Integrated Query (LINQ) | Understanding the Basics of Web Services using .NET | Understanding the Basics of XPath |