Windows Phone Thoughts: Add Some Zinc To Your Software: MDM Zinc For Pocket PC 2 Reviewed

Features, Simple & More
It seems that if you want to customize the way your application runs in Zinc, you can do so with virtually endless possibilities. The dialog below allows you to specify application properties, such as forcing the device to show the application full screen and give it a custom icon in the Programs menu. One typical use for Flash is to give interactive demo content on the web, or to deliver a product catalog. Obviously marketing managers may know enough about flash to make it pretty, and Zinc would give them the power to deploy their work to a new audience - the mobile user. I can also see a great way for device manufacturers to build a "demo" mode into their devices - simply by shipping a pre-made full-screen projector that could display the device's features by itself. This would both secure the device from vandals, and increase visibility in display models. As a plus, the same "demo" could be put on a the corporate website with no difficulty


Figure 2: Right down to the icon & position customizations!

Zinc also offers scripting abilities, allowing users to customize their applications from within Flash by using {mdm}Script. While devoted flash programmers know the code they need to implement message boxes and other UI elements, {mdm}Script is compatible with MDM's Zinc products for other operating systems, so the program you develop for the Pocket PC and ship with Zinc for the Pocket PC will work the same if you ship it with Zinc for Mac OS, for example.


Figure 3: Zinc File Packing Dialog.

Another neat feature Zinc offers is the ability to bundle multiple files along with your application, making it easy to deploy files your application depends on as well as resources or even other "helper" applications. It's nice to have the ability to add the files in here, especially because Zinc will output a CAB file or ActiveSync installer directly, without this feature, additional files could become a headache for developers.