Overview

The Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

 .NET Compact Framework

.NET Compact Framework

The Microsoft .NET Compact Framework is a version of the .NET Framework that is designed to run on resource constrained mobile/embedded devices such as personal digital assistants , mobile phones, factory controllers, set-top boxes, etc...

 is a sub-library of .NET framework

.NET Framework

The .NET Framework is a software framework that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It includes a large library and supports several programming languages which allows language interoperability...

. It simplifies the mobile application development

Mobile application development

Mobile application development is the process by which application software is developed for small low-power handheld devices such as personal digital assistants, enterprise digital assistants or mobile phones...

 of smart devices. These are to a large extent limited by the screen size, CPU performance or memory capacity. .NET compact framework takes some of the controls and libraries from .NET framework. Moreover it optimizes them to match the limited options of mobile devices in comparison with PCs.
There are certain criteria of user interface that mobile users demand. While plenty of functions of standard PC

Personal computer

A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...

 or Mac

Macintosh

The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...

 applications add to the user experience, they might decrease the mobile user experience. Mobile screen is usually small. Therefore, the user may often miss click on mobile screen with many buttons. All of the .NET compact framework controls are hence optimized to overcome the possible limits of mobile devices. Third party controls are also available.

Features

• faster UI development
• widely used controls
• source code availability
• possibility to develop applications in Microsoft Visual Studio
  Microsoft Visual Studio
  Microsoft Visual Studio is an integrated development environment from Microsoft. It is used to develop console and graphical user interface applications along with Windows Forms applications, web sites, web applications, and web services in both native code together with managed code for all...
  
  

.NET CF controls description

Controls and Components	Description
Button	Button that responds to the user's tap.
CheckBox	Checkbox option.
ComboBox	Drop-down list from which users can select a value.
ContextMenu	Pop-up menus displayed when touching the object or item
Control	Base for custom controls creation.
DataGrid	Display data from DataSet, DataView or DataTable.
DateTimePicker	Pick date and time.
DocumentList	Displays and manages documents.
DomainUpDown	Definition of the list of controls that the control displays.
HardwareButton	Controls for hardware buttons of pocket device.
Help	Help function.
HScrollBar	Horizontal scroll bar.
ImageList	Holds and provides images to the ListView, TreeView and ToolBar controls.
InputPanel	Controls Soft Input Panel.
LinkLabel	Simple hyperlink functionality.
Label	Displays text.
ListBox and ListControl	Lists of items from which users can select a value.
ListView	Displays a grid.
LogFont	Defines a logical font.
MainMenu	Adds menu to a form.
MessageBox	One or two buttons message boxes.
MessageWindow	Generate and receive Windows messages.
Notification	Displays and responds to user notifications.
MobileDevice	Releases cached resources.
NumericUpDown	Numeric input. Combination of a text box and a vertical scroll bar.
OpenFileDialog	Provides access to a standard open file dialog box.
PictureBox	Displays images.
ProgressBar	Visual indicator of a progress of a task.
RadioButton	Graphical button and a text descriptor.
SaveFileDialog	Opens a save file dialog.
ScreenOrientation	Allows you to change the screen orientation value to 90, 180, or 270.
StatusBar	Adds a status bar to a form.
TabControl	Tabbed interface for an application.
TextBox	Basic text input field.
Timer	Simple timer functionality.
TrackBar	Used to obtain a numeric input.
TreeView	Displays tree control.
VScrollBar	Implementation of a vertical scroll bar.

Third party .NET CF Controls

Apart from Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

other companies exist who produce .NET Compact Framework controls. See External links section below to find out more third party .NET CF controls.

External links

• .NET CF 3.5 Download
• Third party .NET CF Controls