WCF Guidance for Windows Mobile on CodePlex

A Technical Blog article. View original blog here.[^]

I was looking for a Windows Mobile specific WCF reference since I knew that the Compact Framework doesn't support all of the same WCF profiles that the desktop framework does. I was searching for a webcast that was done on the topic when I stumbled upon a document that had the information I was seeking on the CodePlex. You can see the document for yourself here. The document was created by Michele Bustamante aka That Indigo Girl.

The document contains a lot of good information and is written for the developer that has no experience with the compact framework or WCF. Only experience with the .NET framework is required. It will walk one through the steps of setting up their development environment for mobile development.

By the way, I did find a listing of the limitations for which I was looking.

Feature	Support
Streaming	Not Supported. Contract can use Stream parameters but they will not be buffered or streamed.
Sessions	Transport sessions not supported. Service contract can use SessionMode.Allowed. Service should use InstanceContextMode.PerCall behaviour.
Duplex	Services designed for duplex communications with callback contracts cannot be called by mobile clients. Duplex requires a transport session.
Transactions	Service contract cannot require transaction for any service operations.
Data Contracts and Serializable Types	Can freely use. The mobile client will use XmlSerializer types that are wire compatible
Message Contracts	Can freely use. If the message contract includes custom headers proxy generation will not work. Mobile client requires additional custom code to work with headers.
Fault Contracts	Can include in the service contract. Proxy generation will not include fault contracts so additional custom code for mobile client is required to work with faults.

There are quite a few more limitations to know about for WCF in the Compact Framework. I won't name all of them here since I think the document does an excellent job of detailing the limitations. At a length of only 72 pages including diagrams its a document that a developer should be able to easily get through.

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This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

About the Author

Joel Ivory Johnson

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I attended Southern Polytechnic State University and earned a Bachelors of Science in Computer Science and later returned to earn a Masters of Science in Software Engineering.

For the past few years I've been providing solutions to clients using Microsoft technologies for web and Windows applications.

While most of my CodeProject.com articles are centered around Windows Phone it is only one of the areas in which I work and one of my interests. I also have interest in mobile development on Android and iPhone. Professionally I work with several Microsoft technologies including SQL Server technologies, Silverlight/WPF, ASP.Net and others. My recreational development interest are centered around Artificial Inteligence especially in the area of machine vision.

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