Development requirements

Before beginning your development, you need to choose your target client platform. If you are going to deploy on multiple client platforms you will need to consider those, even though you must build and compile for each platform individually. If you are uncertain of your deployment target than it is easier to learn the basics of mobile development while targeting a Windows platform. If you are developing for a mobile device there are additional developer requirements.

Visual Studio 2008 SP1

Visual Studio 2008 SP1 is the environment used when developing with the ArcGIS Mobile SDK. You must install Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition or above before installing the Mobile SDK. You can develop device-based applications in either C# or VB.NET, so install the language with which you are most familiar. There are no restrictions or benefits in developing with either language when specifically developing Mobile SDK applications.

Client Application

Required Framework

Windows Mobile

.NET CF 2.0 SP2

Windows Forms

.NET Framework 3.5 SP1

Windows WPF

.NET Framework 3.5 SP1

NoteNote:

Install the ArcGIS Mobile SDK on your computer after Visual Studio 2008 to ensure that the mobile toolbox components and other integration features install correctly.

After installing the SDK, you should see an ArcGIS Mobile Controls tab within your Visual Studio toolbox containing the Mobile SDK controls. Additionally, when compiling your application, Visual Studio will check for and add the additional Mobile SDK core library component to the solution. If you reinstall Visual Studio 2008 you should reinstall the Mobile SDK to reestablish the integration.

The libraries for each platform, Windows and device based, consists of several dlls. For Windows, these libraries are located within the ArcGIS\Bin directory. The compact framework versions are located within the ArcGIS\DeveloperKit\CompactFramework directory. Normally, during development you do not have to worry about referencing these libraries in your solution as the Visual Studio integration manages referencing and linking.


9/20/2011