I've released yet another version of the OpenNETCF.IoC Framework.  This release has a few minor fixes over what I shipped last week, but more important is that it includes the start for a more complete example.  The new sample shows how to dynamically load modules based on a configuration XML document and how to use the DeckWorkspace.

If you're using the framework, please let me know.  I see that it's been downloaded and we're getting some questions and bug reports, so I know that people are at least testing it out, but I've gotten no feedback as to whether anyone finds it useful of not.

The new Demo showing XAML for Windows CE is really, really impressive.  This is non-WinMo, meaning CE no longer is a second-class citizen  in the device market.  If only I knew how to do design work....

I've pushed up a new set of features and fixes for the OpenNETCF.IoC Framework as well as rolled a new release. See the Project Site for full details on what changed, but the general feature additions are that the framework now supports loading modules from configuration XML (you can now really decouple your app modules) and I added support for a DeckWorkspace and all the trappings around starting your app from a workspace.

Detecting if your application has been idle (i.e. no user mouse or keyboard actions) for a certain period of time is straightforward using an IMessageFilter implementation.  The filter would look like this:

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using OpenNETCF.Win32;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using OpenNETCF.Windows.Forms;

namespace MessageFilterSample
{
  public class InactivityFilter : IMessageFilter
  {
    public event MethodInvoker InactivityElapsed;

    private Timer m_inactivityTimer;

    public InactivityFilter(int timeoutMilliseconds)
    {
      m_inactivityTimer = new Timer();
      m_inactivityTimer.Interval = timeoutMilliseconds;

      m_inactivityTimer.Tick += new EventHandler(m_inactivityTimer_Tick);
      Reset();
    }

    void m_inactivityTimer_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
      m_inactivityTimer.Enabled = false;
      Elapsed = true;

      if (InactivityElapsed != null) InactivityElapsed();
    }

    public bool PreFilterMessage(ref Microsoft.WindowsCE.Forms.Message m)
    {
      switch ((WM)m.Msg)
      {
        case WM.KEYUP:
        case WM.LBUTTONUP:
        case WM.MOUSEMOVE:
          // reset the timer
          m_inactivityTimer.Enabled = false;
          m_inactivityTimer.Enabled = true;
          break;
      }
      return false;
    }

    public int Timeout { get; set; }
    public bool Elapsed { get; private set; }

    public void Reset()
    {
      Elapsed = false;
      m_inactivityTimer.Enabled = true;
    }
  }
}

To use it, you must use one of the Run overloads in Application2 to start your application, then you can add your filter like this:

InactivityFilter m_filter = new InactivityFilter(5000);
m_filter.InactivityElapsed += new MethodInvoker(m_filter_InactivityElapsed);
Application2.AddMessageFilter(m_filter);
...
void m_filter_InactivityElapsed()
{
   MessageBox.Show("Inactivity timer fired");
}

Download the sample here:
 

MessageFilterSample.zip (3.92 KB)

We've been doing a ton of internal work lately on our Padarn ASP.NET Web Server for Windows CE - both on features as well as just the general stuff you have to do to have a product.  Part of this work was to create a series of hands-on labs to demonstrate how to use Padarn effectively.  The PDFs (a dozen in all so far), along with the latest Developer's Guide are available for public viewing on the Padarn Downloads page.

Admittedly this isn't really mobile related, but the guys over at CI Advantage are giving away T-Shirts with every download of the eval version of Deploy Now (which we do use and love here).  If you have desktop installations of anything, including mobile software or tools (we use it for testing the SDF installer scenarios, among other things) - it's a major time saver.

I blogged about this feature of the SDF two years ago (almost to the day in fact), but it certainly bears repeating since it's so useful.  If you need to know wehn a disk (SD, CF, USB, etc) has been attached or removed from a CE device (including Windows Mobile) you can use the SDF's DeviceStatusMonitor class (which, generally speaking, wraps the RequestDeviceNotifications API).  It's really, really simple to use:

private void WatchForDrives()
{
  DeviceStatusMonitor monitor = new DeviceStatusMonitor(DeviceClass.FileSystem, false);
  monitor.StartStatusMonitoring();
  monitor.DeviceNotification += delegate(object sender, DeviceNotificationArgs e)
  {
    string message = string.Format("Disk '{0}' has been {1}.", e.DeviceName, e.DeviceAttached ? "inserted" : "removed");
    MessageBox.Show(message, "Disk Status");
  };
}