App Builder involves using a Visual Studio project template from an SDK developed from the OS. With previous versions of Windows Embedded Compact/CE, you could install the generic Windows CE 5 SDK and create applications to run on the OS using the SDK installed Smart Device project templates in Visual studio. Alternatively you could create an SDK for the specific OS install that and use its template, although that wasn’t necessary. With Compact 2013, no general SDK is currently available. You must build one first from the operating system project and install it.
A Software Development Kit (SDK) is a set of resources that an application developer can use to build applications for an operating system. The SDK represents the functionality of the OS components and its BSP. Its resources include tools for building applications such as CPU specific compilers and linkers, libraries to link and corresponding header files, as well as DLLs, particularly Managed Code DLLs. It would also include documentation about the target system and its SDK including help files.
A Compact 2013 SDK when installed to a development system adds Visual Studio application project templates that target the SDK’s target system. A new feature of Compact 2013 is that these Visual Studio projects, as part of the OS solution can be deployed (and debugged) to an instance of the OS also deployed from the save instance of Visual Studio. They still can be developed from a separate instance of Visual Studio though. The SDK is self-contained with respect to the resources it requires to build application. With it you can build applications without Platform Builder. Given a suitably configured application project and required environment variables, it is possible to build an application from the command line with the SDK installed, without Visual Studio.
An SDK for Compact 2013 must be must be used to develop Managed Code applications for Compact 2013. Previously a generic Windows CE 5 SDK was sufficient for Embedded Compact and CE devices. It installed managed and native code “Smart Device” project templates in Visual Studio Compact/CE device application development. But given the “source code only” compatibility issue (see later this chapter) that SDK is not suitable for Compact 2013. You do have to build and install the target OS’s SDK to develop .NETCF applications. Native code applications can also be developed using the SDK separate from Platform Builder although it is simpler to develop them as subprojects.
To deploy and debug an application on a target system, the download from the development environment uses CoreCon as per previous versions of the OS. This is covered in the SDK and Managed Code chapters.
NEXT: Application (In)compatibility
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