Types of Smart Clients Applications

Smart clients vary greatly in design and implementation, both in application requirements and in the number of scenarios and environments in which they can be used. Smart clients therefore can take many different forms and styles. These forms can be divided into three broad categories according to the platform that the smart client application is targeting:

• Windows smart client applications
• Office smart client applications
• Mobile smart client applications

It is common for a smart client application to target one or more of these platforms, depending on the role of the user and the functionality required. Such flexibility is one of the key strengths of smart client applications.

Windows Smart Client Applications

These kinds of applications typically use Windows Forms to provide a familiar Windows-style user interface, where the application itself provides much of the functionality and does not rely on another application to provide the main user interface.

A Windows smart client application is suitable in situations where an application needs to be deployed and accessed as a familiar desktop-type application. These types of applications typically provide the majority of their functionality themselves but can integrate with or coordinate other applications when appropriate.

Windows smart client applications are typically most suitable for applications that run on desktop, laptop, or tablet PCs. Examples of these kinds of applications are Microsoft Money and the Microsoft Outlook messaging and collaboration client.

Office Smart Client Applications

Microsoft Office System 2003/2007 provides you with a useful platform on which to build smart client applications, especially in an enterprise setting. With an Office smart client solution, you can integrate data sources, accessed through Web services, with the features of Word 2003/2007, Excel 2003/2007, InfoPath 2003/2007, or other Office applications to develop smart client solutions. They can provide context-sensitive data as the user works within a document, as well as workflow and task guidance, data analysis, collaboration, reporting, and presentation features that turn data exposed by Web services into useful information.

Microsoft Office supports XML and separates the data from other aspects of a document so that it can be reused by other applications. Because application data in Microsoft Office can be described by the same customer-defined XML schema across multiple applications, developers can integrate that data into smart client applications.

Microsoft Office 2003 has a number of key features and options for building smart client solutions. These include:

Smart tags – Smart tags give applications a way to provide users with context sensitive data pertaining to the contents of a document and allow them to easily see and use relevant information when working within a document.

Smart documents – Smart documents provide a more powerful way for the user to interact with documents and business Web services. Smart documents are a new type of solution model for Word 2003 and Excel 2003 that have an underlying XML structure and a customized task pane.

Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office (VSTO) – This suite of tools enables developers to create managed code Office smart client applications by using the Microsoft Visual Studio IDE. Using managed code with Microsoft Office provides developers with more effective options for creating, deploying, and managing updates for smart client solutions.

Microsoft Office InfoPath – InfoPath is an application that can gather structured data from the user by using a form-like interface. InfoPath provides support for XML Web services, a form-based user interface, and support for standard technologies such as WSDL and UDDI.

Mobile Smart Client Applications

Mobile smart clients are applications that run on smart devices — Pocket PCs, Smartphone, and other small form factor devices such as set-top boxes. These applications are developed using the .NET Compact Framework, which is a subset of the full .NET Framework.

The .NET Compact Framework has many of the features of the full .NET Framework, supports XML, and consumes Web services. It is optimized for use on small form factor devices, and it includes the Windows Forms designer for developing the user interface.

By using the Visual Studio .NET Smart Device Projects, you can develop smart clients that will run on the .NET Compact Framework. This approach allows you to develop, test, and debug an application by using Visual Studio .NET on an emulator of the small form factor device. The use of an emulator significantly speeds up development and testing of these types of applications.

Mobile smart client applications are typically used to provide mobile access to essential data and services, or to collect and aggregate data when the user is mobile.

Who Is Best Smart Clients or Thin Clients

There are number of factor we have to consider while choosing right application architecture. A thin client architecture is often the most appropriate if you need to make an externally facing application available to a diverse external audience, while a smart client architecture is often the most suitable for an internal application that needs to integrate with or coordinate other client-side applications or hardware, or that is required to work offline or provide specific high-performance functionality through a responsive user interface.

Now take a look below on features provided by thin client and smart client.