München N9 Application Clinic Post-mortem

lavonius | 31 October, 2011 22:10

We spent a good chunk of last week in the annual Qt Developer Days in Munich.

 München N9 Application Clinic

We had a well-placed "N9 Application Clinic", where current and prospective developers could discuss all aspects of the device, tooling and application distribution. The location was at the top of the stairs in the second floor of the exhibitor space, so the white jackets were easily visible to all.

The show took a turn for the more physical, when hundreds of N9s (blue, with 16GB storage) were distributed to the attendees after a lottery during the keynote. As the device requires a micro-SIM, owning the only cutting device in the conference center was a very good way to attract visitors. We served as consultants for this particular exercise, each individual had to dare to cut his own card. The results were positive indeed, out of 100+ cards only one turned out to be too severely mis-cut to be of use.

Following hot on the heels of the SIM card-cutting queries, the second most popular question concerned the NFC functionality of the device. The current platform software version (1.0) does not fully support NFC, and e.g. reading/writing tag payload will be fully supported in the forthcoming platform software update (1.1). Fortunately, this slight deficiency in no way affects the use of NFC functionality of other folks' devices to open additional levels in the Angry Birds game that ships with the device.

We answered scores of questions during the two and a half days, and here are some of the more common or insightful development topics:

  • Why can't I enable developer mode on my device?

You need to ensure that you have updated the device time to mostly correspond with reality (the date cannot be older than that of the timestamp on the device). If the problem persists, apply the package updates in the application manager and then try to enable the developer mode again.

  • How do I use the camera / multi-channel sound / authentication services / calendar entries / ...?

Please check the Developer Library for details on the application programming interfaces provided. 

  • How do I use the in-device software functionalities in my application?

You can launch some of the default applications with properly formatted arguments (e.g. show a location in maps ) or programmatically invoke them (e.g. the call UI). The Developer Library provides details and examples.

  • How do I ensure that my application rotates properly?

For most applications the easiest way to ensure appropriate behaviour is to use Qt Quick components to encapsulate the application. See the Developer Library for theory and practice. 

  • How should the application function in the background?

It should "hibernate" - upon being deactivated, the application should minimize its use of drawing, network connectivity and other device functionalities. This way you can ensure that it does not sap the device's power unnecessarily. Again, the Developer Library provides more information about the subject.

  • How do I make the virtual keyboard disappear once it loses focus?

This is caused by a bug in the current platform software.

This problem typically appears in a web application if you have text input fields on the html page. Text input fields created using the Qt Quick components or MeeGo Touch behave correctly. The workaround is described in the SDK release notes and when you use that workaround, you also ensure that the application does not use the booster-facility (selectable when creating the application with the project wizard).

  • Are there known issues in taking the SDK into use?

In the current Windows SDK installer there is a known bug in installing the USB driver. It is not available in the default installer configuration.

So, if you cannot install the Linux USB Ethernet/RNDIS driver, you need to run the SDK maintenance tool manually from the command line with the following additional argument: "--show-virtual-components" and then select "Qt SDK" -> "Development Tools" -> "Maemo/Meego development" -> "USB Network Driver"

  • Are all the UI documentation components matched with Qt Quick components?

Currently no, the documentation and the attached Adobe Illustrator(R) file describes several components for which there's no equivalent in the Qt Quick component portfolio.

This will be fixed in the updated UX documentation.

Also, please take a look at the Qt Quick components gallery applications (available in the examples-package that can be installed via the developer mode). Those two applications present the set of components available.

  • How do I get my application into the Ovi Store without too much boomerangs from their quality assurance team?

Can-do-now answer: Follow the Entry Criteria.

Can-do-in-the-future answer: Read through the common pitfalls and learn how to avoid them in a series of posts in this very blog (coming soon).

If you did not get a satisfactory answer to your question at the event or have run into new issues lately, please add a comment to this blog entry, and we will continue digging for the information.

For our American patients, the doctors will be available in the San Francisco Qt Developer Days in late November.

MeeGo , Ovi , Qt , Tools , UI , N9 , Qt Mobility , Qt Quick | Next | Previous | Comments (1) | Trackbacks (0)

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Video from Qt DD 2011

SanttuAhonen | 04/11/2011, 11:49

SanttuAhonen

If you did not spot this already: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN5bJ9QN6Zc

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