Tablet PC platform advances in SDK (software development kit) 1.7, announced at Microsoft`s Professional Developers` Conference in Los Angeles this year, add Web support for tablet applications, a context tagging tool, real-time stylus abilities and a developer recognition pack.
David Jones, Microsoft`s lead programme manager for the tablet PC platform, told tablet enthusiast-developers in attendance, almost all sporting notebook/tablet convertibles or tablet PCs, that the SDK will ship next year.
"As regards Web support, the new SDK allows you to embed .Net Windows Forms inking controls into ASP.NET or html pages," he said, citing online prescription writing as a real-world application.
"Also, you can create and deploy applications using the No Touch feature of .Net."
Users download applications by requesting a URL, and updates can be done automatically at future launches, combining the deployment of a Web application with the features of a "smart client" (non-Web) application.
A context-tagging tool in the SDK means developers can add context information, such as specifying that a number is a telephone number, without modifying original code. This will aid handwriting recognition, said Jones.
Real-time Stylus (RTS) APIs give developers better control over the flow of "ink" data, better support for synchronous and asynchronous collection of ink data and a simplified threading model. "The usage scenarios for this can include no-ink areas in a document or custom gesture detection," said Jones.
<B>Taking up tablets</B>
Tablet PC edition is one year old. It has 40 original equipment manufacturers, such as Motion Computing and Toshiba. Six of these are multinationals and many are in the second or third generation of their hardware, improving form factors, operating systems (currently a superset of XP), battery life and other issues.
There are 130 independent software vendors on XP Tablet Edition. Corporate customers are doing broad-based evaluation of the platform, but the vertical industries are the quickest to deploy - notably healthcare, education, journalism and insurance.
Aside from including standard development guides and API references (C++, C#, VB, VB .Net and VB 6), the SDK includes detailed designer guidelines, extensive sample applications (19 in total) and source code.
"Take these things away with you," Jones said in parting. "You can develop and test most of the inking functionality intended for tablet use on your desktop. It has full language support, and there will be an alpha version in November."
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