Monday, September 13, 2004
Syware Visual CE Reviewed
Posted by Andy Sjostrom in "DEVELOPER" @ 12:00 PM
Geekzone's Freitas has written a review of SYWARE Visual CE Enterprise for Pocket PC. Visual CE is a popular database and data collection application development. Its main appeal relates to ease of use and how the tool makes fairly complex challenges easy to deal with. The review provides a nice walk through of setting up the environment and creating a "Hello World" type application.
I wonder, though, why Visual CE applications often get a very colorful look? I've scrolled through Syware's site and looked at the samples and I've seen real world Visual CE applications. Are Visual CE users more colorful than others?
"This review took longer that I'd expected. The reason for this is because this is really a large application environment. SYWARE's Visual CE 8 is a database, forms and report design application for the Pocket PC and Windows CE devices. Even users with no previous programming knowledge can easily develop a fairly complex data oriented application, and expert users can develop and deploy a large functional application. ... For my our tests I have used the Enterprise Edition. This version also includes a built-in report generator called Report CE to create ad-hoc reports and the sqlceEnable plugin which allows reports to read SQL CE databases. ... Entering information is very easy, and the Record menu provides access to records by using First, Previous, Next, Last and a Search function. It also provides Print, Save, Delete, Insert. The application also provides a table view and filtering capabilities. The user can exchange information with other Visual CE users via infrared or Bluetooth, and can select to beam all records or just the current record. Forms can be locked, so that after the final touches, no one (not even the creator) can modify it. Other interesting functionality is the automatic date picker when entering date/time fields. ... Applications like data collection, prescription management, inventory and others that require mobility can certainly benefit of this program, but even users looking for a tool to help them manage a collection or personal data can use Visual CE (in its Lite or Personal versions) to help them in these tasks."
I wonder, though, why Visual CE applications often get a very colorful look? I've scrolled through Syware's site and looked at the samples and I've seen real world Visual CE applications. Are Visual CE users more colorful than others?
"This review took longer that I'd expected. The reason for this is because this is really a large application environment. SYWARE's Visual CE 8 is a database, forms and report design application for the Pocket PC and Windows CE devices. Even users with no previous programming knowledge can easily develop a fairly complex data oriented application, and expert users can develop and deploy a large functional application. ... For my our tests I have used the Enterprise Edition. This version also includes a built-in report generator called Report CE to create ad-hoc reports and the sqlceEnable plugin which allows reports to read SQL CE databases. ... Entering information is very easy, and the Record menu provides access to records by using First, Previous, Next, Last and a Search function. It also provides Print, Save, Delete, Insert. The application also provides a table view and filtering capabilities. The user can exchange information with other Visual CE users via infrared or Bluetooth, and can select to beam all records or just the current record. Forms can be locked, so that after the final touches, no one (not even the creator) can modify it. Other interesting functionality is the automatic date picker when entering date/time fields. ... Applications like data collection, prescription management, inventory and others that require mobility can certainly benefit of this program, but even users looking for a tool to help them manage a collection or personal data can use Visual CE (in its Lite or Personal versions) to help them in these tasks."
