Complete absence of printer drivers for Win 2003SE (Smartphone not PDA)

[Guest perhagman]

Stockholm, August 21 2006.

Dear Forum:

We have a C# application running on older Smartphone models

(MS Windows 2003SE for Smartphone) where both WM5.0 and PDAs

are "overkill".

The Smartphone gets input data from a barcode scanner via

bluetooth (SPP serial profile), forwards the data via GPRS to

a webserver which validates & replies with a beep + ascii-text.

Now, at the end of a transaction, we need to send ascii-text

not to the Smartphone display but rather to a portable printer

at the remote location - preferably also pushed out from the

Smartphone via bluetooth to the mobile printer.

The REAL snag is that 99% of the market only use PDAs so the

hardware manufacturers themselves have no drivers which can

be used on Win 2003SE Smartphone OS (only PPC/WinCE or WM5.0)

and consequently we need to find a workaround to solve this.

[A] Using FieldSoftware's SmartphonePrint which does allow

for bluetooth printing to some models, but it only can print

PIM elements unfortunately.

In that case, we thought of using the Smartphone PIM task

+ Notes attached to a Task, as the text to print, but this

mean we must create a Task+Notes on-the-fly programmatically

deleting any previous ones in the process, AND launch the

3rd-party SmartphonePrint sequence without user interaction!!

Does anyone now how this could be done simply?

Else, has anyone seen any other Smartphone 2003 print

utility from "way back when" ??

[C] Better yet, would anyone knows of any usable drivers?!?

so we indeed could integrate the printing to our C# application

(deployed from MS Visual Studio 2005 Professional), and bypass

the need for a 3rd-party software, which is harder to control

AND which would lead to resorting to end-user action...

Grateful for any suggestions, albeit in priority C > B > A !

Brgds,

/Per Hagman

==============================================================

PS-1:

There are two-three well-known 3rd-party suppliers of standard

software for printing from an older Smartphone such as Qtek8080

or imate SP3 - aka SPV/Xphone/SDA/SMT5600 etc, namely:

FieldSoftware -- www.fieldsoftware.com/smartphoneprintfull.htm

JetCet -- www.westtek.com/smartphone/jetcet/

PrintBoy -- www.bachmannsoftware.com/pbce.htm (only MS Mobile 5.0?)

Although articles, forums etc. indicate that PrintBoy works on

both PDA and Smartphones, its CAB-file doesn't install on our

MS Win 2003SE Smartphone...

Repligo 2.0 for Smartphones looks like another method, but we

will have to doublecheck if the HP printing is possible for

the portable printers that are available... ???

www.cerience.com/products/smp/index.htm

www.cerience.com/docs/smp/docs/index.htm#Printing

There are a number of small portable mobile printers available

on the market, many conveniently eqipped with a bluetooth

interface -- these printers are ok for field-service printing

For a visual near-complete listing, see again:

www.fieldsoftware.com/PrintersSupported.htm

PS-2:

There is also ActivePrint for PDA printing while docked, and

it might work for Smartphones. However, it doen't really apply

for printing at remote locations (or in a delivery truck) using

small mobile printers,,,

www.activeprint.pocketwatchsoftware.com/news/2006.04.04.htm

Finally at www.print4mobile.com/Engine.htm we found a system

for printing more sophisticated database-driven report prints

which is a clear overkill for us at this stage, and still we

cannot see how they would handle the lacking mobile printer drivers...

Note:

HP has discontinued its Win Smartphone 2003SE package in late 2005:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechS...Item=ja-36647-1

However, here's a download link:

www.yse-uk.com/download/details.php?file=37