Transferring data to (Windows) Mobile Devices

Question

I created an app for Windows Mobile 6.5 and am fairly happy with it. However, if anyone else need to use this app, they will have to transfer an initial file (txt or csv) to the device. For a developer this isn't a problem but is this too much to ask of an end user? Granted, they will want to move (sync) data back to their desktop after the device's data have been updated.

So how do other apps solve this problem? Do I need to provide some kind of syncing software?

Answer 1

but is this too much to ask of an end user?

That depends on your target group. I see two solutions for this:

• Create a setup project for your app which also transfers the txt/csv file or

• have your application create the txt/csv file itself (in a location that is synced back by ActiveSync by default, such as the "My Documents" folder).

If you provide more details on what information this txt/csv file contains, I might be able to suggest more specific solutions...

Answer 2

The text file will contain the initial data for the app. However, once loaded, the users may want to update the data and will need someway to sync it back to the PC.

Answer 3

Our users have no special technical ability but are happy enough using ActiveSync to transfer files to and from the Storage Card. We provide them with a help document explaining how to do this.

I think it helps that the Storage Card is an easy to remember location.

Answer 4

There's no easy answer for this becasue we have no idea what the data is, the level of complexity of the data, the PC-side infrastructure, or really much of anything. You have several general options though. Here's a list of offhand ways, though there could probably be more:

1. Have the user transfer the file manually via a storage card
2. Have the user manually transfer the file via ActiveSync
3. Have the device application create the file if it's not there
4. Have a PC application transfer the file via RAPI
5. Have the PC application transfer the file via a proprietary protocol
6. Have the device retrieve the file from a server (web server, ftp, Azure cloud, etc)
7. Write an ActiveSync data provider and let ActiveSync synchronize the entities