Citrix client on the HTC Touch Diamond
23/06/08 07:19:09 pm by Matt - 360 words
Categories: Software |
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In the past I have mentioned using the Citrix client on Windows Mobile devices. I've had a great deal of success using it on the HTC Advantage, both the X7500 and X7510.
The Client will install and run on most Windows Mobile devices (devices running Windows CE Smartphone Edition or Windows Mobile 6 Standard Edition are not supported) but it's not terribly useful on 320x240 screen devices as there really isn't enough screen real estate. So this got me to thinking - how well will Citrix run on the HTC Touch Diamond and is the screen big enough to be useful?
The client can be downloaded from the Citrix Website and is easily installed with activesync from your desktop PC.
I've been experimenting with the Citrix client today and managed to get connected to my Citrix farm and run several applications quite easily. The VGA display on the Diamond is just about large enough to use a few basic applications (Word, Excel some bespoke apps.) and an HSDPA connection is fast enough to be useful.
A few things that I had to do before getting it to work properly was to use Internet Explorer to connect to the application server rather than Opera. Opera wont launch the Citrix Client and attempts to use Java instead, whereas Internet Explorer launches properly. You can find Internet Explorer in the Windows folder on the Diamond and you can run it from File Explorer.
Secondly I had to install the Equifax Secure eBusiness root certificate as these are not trusted by default on WM devices.
So those few things out of the way it was easy to connect to my application server and fire up the apps I needed. I really wish that Citrix would develop the client a bit more though. I'd like to see options to run full screen and easily minimise and zoom etc. I think on of the biggest things that it's missing is the ability to rotate the screen on the client. Perhaps it'll get more attention as more people use it?!
Posted by: Matt
[Post tag(s): smartphone blog, Pocket PC blog, HTC Touch Diamond, Citrix, Tracy & Matt]
Permalink8 comments
Some Windows Mobile phones allow screen rotation from WM, it this not available ?
The HTC Touch Diamond does not have video out, it's the Touch Pro that does and I cant wait to give that a go.
There is a third-party app for the Touch Diamond that allows screen rotation and this works quite well.
One other issue that I did come across was with the on screen keyboard. When the keyboard is displayed it reduces the size of the citrix window and I cant see a way to make it bigger again.
Matt
Do you already see Tecnosfera MVDI ?
http://www.tecnosfera.com
Nice writeup above. A few extra notes:
- There is a global setting in the WinMo ICA client to allow full screen. See http://community.citrix.com/blogs/citrite/adamma/2008/04/08/Full+Screen+Mode+for+your+Nirvana+Device
It is a global setting thus you "loose" the panning/scalling and Zoom functionality, but work well if you start the session at the devices native resolution
- I also get you point on screen rotation on devices like the Diamond. The ICA client does support changing the resolution of the session automatically when the devices changes from portrait to landscape. Devices that do this automatically when you pull out the qwerty keyboard help, but no help on devices like the diamond. This is functionality that natively comes from the work we did for tablet PCs
- I've also recently be working with the Touch Pro and the ICA client, and haven't seen issues with use of Opera launching the ICA client, should be getting a Diamon soon to try as well?
You may want to check out my blog at http://community.citrix.com/blogs/citrite/adamma that has a number of tips, tricks and review of other devices being used with Citirx
And you are correct, we are monitoring the uptake in use of the mobile Citrix ICA clients to determine when and what changes to make :)
In my previous post, I mentioned the full screen mode setting for the WinMo ICA client. Note that wen you do this, you will not be able to access the onscreen keyboard, this this is only recommended for devices with a qwerty keyboard if you plan on being able to type!
Note my blog site at the top of this link for a number of posts we've done on mobility. Search the citrix blogs for mobility, or "nirvana".
In general to get started, you would want to download the client from the Citrix download site to get started. Use ARM Processor, version 10.0 .cab file from http://www.citrix.com/English/ss/downloads/details.asp?downloadId=3607&productId=186
Our MAC clients are located at
http://www.citrix.com/English/SS/downloads/details.asp?downloadID=3247&productID=-1
Once you've installed the clients you may need to work with the hospitals IT dept to determine which SSL/VPN solutions they use to get these devices access to the internal network where the data is located. Sometimes easier to start by getting you device on the hospitals 802.11 network to start with to get an idea of the usability, and then work to get the SSL/VPN support figured out to get access from the internet when outside of the hospital.
Note that I use both a Macbook Pro and an HTC Touch Pro with Mobile 6.1. I actually just finished doing an invite only 5 city launch event with Sprint and HTC to show Citrix running on the HTC Touch Pro.
If you beleive you have a larger opportunity for this use case in your hospital, you can email me.
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