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Every developer starting off with eVB
wants to develop the perfect mobile application incorporating
many user-friendly and powerful visual controls with an
attractive and colorful interface and sophisticated features.
In addition, everyone would like to do it in just one hour
by clicking a property window and interfacing with the control
using the minimum amount of code - the same way they used
to do in the desktop VB environment.
Unfortunately the standard eVB
ActiveX controls provide only a few features that can be
accessed through the desktop controls. Consequently many
Pocket PC applications suffer from decreased performance,
or alternatively must use inconvenient APIs to do the work.
And in many cases not even API's can help. In these instances
third party controls, like the
Resco controls, can save you time and provide a polished
look to your applications.
Powerful Grid supporting fixed columns
(rows), graphics and more
Currently the database-related applications
are the most common type of Pocket PC applications. No matter
what data the application processes, it usually needs to
display it in a tabular form and to do this developers commonly
use the Grid control. However since the standard Grid lacks
many important features, developers need to look for a suitable
substitute to increase the performance and/or add functionality.
The
Resco Grid Control incorporates native support of the
majority of the features offered by the desktop Grid - most
of them can be accessed directly from the property window.
This way it can be easily configured in the design mode.
One of the main features supported
by the Resco Grid is the FixedCols (FixedRows) feature.
This feature allows the user to keep the first column (row)
static while scrolling through the others. Users can also
adjust the column width (and row height) easily using the
stylus. Both of these properties can be set in the design
mode.
Another useful feature is the ability
to display a graphic within any specified cell. You can
display, for example, a shopping basket picture directly
within the cell stating the product price. If the user clicks
the cell with the picture of a shopping basket the application
can immediately display a purchase order form which the
clicked product can be ordered. The pictures are intuitive,
so there is no need to write a long description, or use
an additional control for this operation.
' Displaying a picture within the cell
RGrid.Row = i
RGrid.Col = j
RGrid.CellLoadPicture "\buy.bmp"
RGrid.CellPictureAlignment = rgridAlignRightCenter
Another advantage of this solution
is that the application can respond to each column click
in a different way. Thus if the user clicks a product name,
the application can display the appropriate product detail
dialog.
The following graphic demonstrates
the flexilibity of the the
Resco Grid Control.
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