SoftwareFX Pocket Chart FX for .NET

Creating a Smart Device application with Pocket Chart FX for .NET

The .NET Compact Framework is installed with Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003. When you create a smart device project in Visual Studio .NET, your project references the .NET Compact Framework assemblies and files. This screen depicts a project containing a chart control.

Once Visual Studio .NET has finished creating the project open Form1, you can simply select the Chart control that has been designed for Smart Devices projects. This icon will be automatically integrated by the Chart FX setup and can be found in a separate tab in the Visual Studio .NET Toolbox.

Simply Drag it onto the form, resize it to fill most of the form, and then double click on the form to begin editing the Form1_Load event handler. When the form loads, we need to place some data into the form. For additional information on how to populate the chart with data please refer to the Pocket Chart FX for .NET documentation.

How do I deploy an application using Pocket Chart FX for .NET?

When you compile and/or deploy your application the Smart Device Extensions substitute the design time version of your assembly with the runtime version. You may wonder how it accomplishes this. The hookup is done via a new attribute exposed in System.CF.Design.dll. This new attribute, RuntimeAssemblyAttribute, allows you to specify the assembly that should be used at compile/runtime to replace the design time assembly. The attribute takes a single argument, the fully qualified type name of your runtime assembly. The full name of the Pocket Chart FX for .NET assembly looks like:

"ChartFX.CF, Version=6.2.1630.25984, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null"

The first part is the name of the assembly minus the .dll on the end. The second part is the version of the assembly. The third part is the culture; if you have not defined one, neutral is the appropriate setting. The fourth part is the public key of the strong name. If you have not strong named the assembly null, is the appropriate value. You use the fully qualified type name with the RuntimeAssemblyAttribute like this:

[assembly: System.CF.Design.RuntimeAssemblyAttribute("ChartFX.CF, Version=6.2.1630.25984, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null")]

Important Note

As soon as you attempt to run this application on a real device, rather than an emulator, you will see a message in the chart placeholder indicating you should invoke SetLicenseString to run the chart. As you may be subject to a run time fees you should contact Software FX to obtain a valid deployment license information for Pocket Chart FX for .NET. Please review the licensing page for more information concerning licensing.