Launching Multiple RhoElements Applications

If you read the post, you already know that you configure RhoElements to launch into an application by changing the parameter in the Config.XML. This location is either on the local file system (ex: file://RhoApps/index.html) or it could be on a remote web server (ex: http://192.168.1.65/index.html). So how do you handle having multiple applications you ask? Well, here are two ways to go about it:

1) Launch RhoElements into a page that acts a menu into your suite of applications.

2) Pass a parameter to RhoElements.exe that will tell it where to start from

The first option is pretty self explanatory and could be done in many different ways. A top level menu.html file would be created and have a list of links to subsequent apps or sub pages. To get back to the top menu, each sub app would need to have a button or corresponding link back to that top level page. This case would fit most circumstances. You would be able to manage the entire user experience essentially putting the device into somewhat of a kiosk mode.

There may be some cases where the users need to have a hybrid native/Rhoelements application access into the device or maybe from an ease of development point of view you want to be able to quickly launch into different "versions" of the app you are working on and you don't want to have to keep modifying the config.xml file.  In this case you will want to create windows mobile shortcut icons to launch RhoElements into each of these applications. For this you would need to pass rhoelements.exe a parameter of "/s:" followed by a location that you would specify by file:// or http:// .

To do this on Windows Mobile/CE you need to create a shortcut file:

1) On your PC desktop create a text file. I will call mine app2.txt

2) Open it with any text editor and add a line:

79#"\Program Files\Rhoelements\rhoelements.exe" /S:file://\RhoApps\app2\index.html

Note: the number is the total number of characters past the # symbol. Also I am using the default installation path. If you installed RhoElements to another location, you will need to change this value.

3) Now save the file, make a copy and rename the copy to app2.lnk (you will have to rename it back to .txt if you want to edit it again)

4) Copy this back to the device to the \Windows\Start Menu\Programs folder

You can now launch this icon and RhoElements will now start with the index.html page in the RhoApps\App2 folder (of course you need to have copied your applicatiopn files there). All other parameters inthe config.xml will be retrieved.

Likewise you can change the parameter to be a reference to a website url by changing the text after the /S ex:

74#"\Program Files\RhoElements\RhoElements.exe" /S:http://192.168.1.25