In one of the comments to the post “Licensing classes in the SDF v2 (part 2)” a user asked a question about a way to tie up the license to the particular device and prevent coping licensed component or application between different user devices. This requirement would make the licensing process a little bit more complicated by adding a few more steps. It is driven by the fact that you will need to include the device id into the license key which later is signed with your private key. Evidently, you will have to add some code in your application that:

1. Will retrieve this device id (that's the easy part - just use the OpenNETCF.WindowsCE.DeviceManagement.GetDeviceid) and either automatically send it to your server or display it to the user.
2. Generate and sign the license that includes the device id with your private key.
3. Send this license to the user.
4. During validation of the license, retrieve the device id and include it into validation.

In order to utilize the Licensing library, you will need to create a new license provider by inheriting from the LicenseProvider class. Also you can either modify the .lic file by adding the DeviceID tag into the xml or append the device id to the contents of the .lic file during validation. If my schedule permits I'll try to add this implementation to the base library.

Chris Tacke has officially announced release of the Smart Device Framework 1.3 at his presentation “OpenNETCF.org : Creating a Community-Driven Development Project” at MEDC. Take a look at these wonderful screenshots on the new integration in VS.NET features from Neil who is single-handedly has done a titanic job of redesigning dialogs and incorporating Application Blocks into SDF installation structure.

As I've already mentioned, I had received a few requests (Robert, Neil, Peter...) to enable filtering support in the SmartList not only for a dialpad keyboard, but also for a Smartphone or Pocket PC devices with a full keyboard. So the update is available in the Source Browser and will eventually make to the SDF binaries as well. I added a new property bool FullKeyboard that is set to false by default and if you'd like to enable full keybard support in the control you just set the property to true.

Seth mentions that SmartList is his favorite. And by the way, don't miss his futuristic vision of a mobile device next generation. I'd like to live in this future too, Seth :). But, in my opinion, many of the things Seth is describing in his “day dream“ are quite possible to develop today. If you are in need to make your dream a reality you can contact us at OpenNETCF Consulting, LLC. (Hey, how is the plug? :))

In order to implement filtering functionality in the SmartList, I had a need to provide the mappings that correspond dialer keyboard key to the characters accordingly to the GSM 02.30 format: 2 - “abc”, 3 - “def” etc... If you look at the code, you'll be able to see that it's simply done by utilizing a Hashtable:

numToLetter.Add('2', "abc");
numToLetter.Add('3', "def");
numToLetter.Add('4', "ghi");
numToLetter.Add('5', "jkl");
...

(By the way, if anybody knows a way to retreive these mapping from the system automatically, please let me know)

This private member is exposed to a developer as the KeyMappings property, which means that you should be able to add/replace the default characters with a language specific ones:

smartList1.KeyMappings['1'] += "ä";
or
smartList1.KeyMappings['1'] = "абв";

The current logic in the control doesn't allow filtering if a Smartphone or Pocket PC device has a built in “qwerty” keyboard. But since I've already received a few requests to enable this functionality in the SmartList, I'll be adding it very soon. 

So here are some screenshots from the sample that's using the SmartList control from the SDF v1.1:

As I've already written the SmartList implements a quick filtering functinality a-la Contacts app in Smartphone as well as ability to create auto numbering menus. 

To help you with a quick filtering there're a two new events for your use: FilteringStarted and FilteringComplete that would be fired as you can assume from its names when the filtering is been started or completed. Aside from showing a WaitCursor you could also use the property ItemsMatchedCount to check how many items are left after filtering.

We've just released SDF v1.1! It includes loads of new stuff and improvements/bug fixes to the existing code. Grab it while it's hot of the press:

www.OpenNETCF.org/SDF

You can read the official press release here.

The OpenNETCF Smart Device Framework is officially released! Grab your copy and enjoy a free ride. :)