N9 Developer

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

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.

The N950 firmware version 39-5, previously released as an over-the-air update, is now also available as a flashable image.

The provided OneClickFlasher can be used to return the device to a known functional state after some bit-too-careless late-night hacking, or if a previous over-the-air update has failed for some reason.

To download the image and read the installation instructions, go to the following page:

Nokia N950 OneClickFlasher for Firmware Version 39-5

Refer to the release notes to find out further details about the new firmware version.

Original kitten image (c) Mel B. and licensed by the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License

The Harmattan Developer Library has been updated with lots of new content and examples. The new version of the library features significant quality improvements like reorganization and general clarifications in the text.

Compared with the version of the Developer Library that shipped with the beta2 version of the Harmattan target, the changes are really major. How about these, for starters:

• A topic on how to provide feedback.
• A section on how to create daemons.
• More comprehensive advice on how to manage rotation in your app.
• Instructions for creating a settings applet for your app.
• Improved instructions for packaging your app.
• The HTML library now also includes the Platform SDK and MADDE terminal user guides.

For a full list of changes in the Developer Library, go to Changes in documentation.

You can browse the Developer Library online or download it in HTML or QCH format. The QCH file can be viewed right in Qt Creator.

It just came to our attention that PySide, the Python Qt bindings framework developed for Nokia N9, is now shipping as a prebuilt extension library for The Foundry's Nuke movie visual effects . Is it now safe to say that the N9 powers the movie industry?

See: Nuke 6.3v5 release notes.

For those of you travelling to Qt Developer Days in Munich:  Part of the N9 Developer Offering team will be there at the N9 App Clinic: Santtu Ahonen, Ville Lavonius, Jussi Vuorisalmi, Sampo Savola, Quim Gil, and Ronan Mac Laverty (a regular batch of Nokia N9 App Doctors).

So if you have any questions, problems or just want to chat, we will be open alongside the Support Desk for the 3 days of the event.

We have released an Nokia N950 software update (39-5).

Currently it is available over the air, withcorresponding oneclickflasher-tools available later.  To initiate the update, please click on the "deviceupdate"-notification in the events screen.

Please ensure that your device is running "beta 2" before updating it. The update does not work on older versions, and you run the risk of rendering your device unusable if you apply the update to a device that contains an older image - then you will have to wait for the oneclickflashers.

There is no need to update the SDK as applications written using Qt SDK 1.1.3 will work with this new release.

For details about the release, refer to the release notes.

So update your software, and enjoy.

The N9 team is in the final stages of preparing an update to the Nokia N950 image, which will align the software more with the Nokia N9 product image.  

To enable a smooth upgrade to the new image N950 users should ensure that they have the latest release of the firmware on their devices (34-2 or Beta2) - SSU will fail with Beta1.  So, if you have not done it already, update to Beta2 now using the OneClickFlashers.

For more information about upgrading from Beta1 to Beta2 please also check out this webpage.

Note:

Some users have reported problems with this update, this can be solved in some cases using the instruction given on this web page. Naturally, these need to be slightly adapted for the 39-5 release, but otherwise the approach may help.

In addition to N9 Developer-blog there are a few other feedback channels you can use to engage with us:

• The MeeGo development forum at developer.nokia.com is the best resource to find answers to technical questions.
• Articles in the MeeGo-category in developer.nokia.com wiki facilitate more detailed discussions and collaboration with other developers
• The public developer.nokia.com Bugzilla is the current channel for reporting bugs.
• The community sites at maemo.org and meego.com both continue to host forums for developers as well.

We have just updated the Python packages for the N9. This release updates PySide: Python for Qt to the latest stable version, 1.0.7. In addition to PySide, the Platform API bindings have received various bug fixes and have been rebuilt with the latest PySide toolchain.

About Harmattan Python

Comprehensive Python availability is one of the better-kept secrets of the MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan platform. Even though it is not available in the Qt SDK and not included in the standard documentation, application developers can install Python packages from a Nokia repository, which is pre-enabled on the device. Ovi Store accepts Python applications as well - the dependencies are downloaded from the repository when the user installs a Python application for the first time.

Resources

To get started with Harmattan Python, check the Harmattan Python wiki. The easiest way to contact the developers is to join the meego-python or the PySide mailing lists.

 This blog entry describes the current status of the various deliverables that have been published to developers.  

The current public device image for N950 was released on 2011-08-30. The image is contains the week 34 release of the platform. The one click flasher-tool to update the device is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X environments. A device image and tooling for N9 will be made available as well, and both of them will evolve as the corresponding updates are published for the devices.

The current version of the Harmattan target for Qt SDK is "beta2", released on 2011-09-28. The target remains an experimental one, and is not part of the default installation of Qt SDK. The Harmattan target is available as an online update for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X environments as well. The release notes describe the changes and improvements in the newest version. The official channel for SDK update announcements is the Qt blog, but Harmattan-affecting changes will covered in detail in this blog as well.

The Harmattan target ships with platform-specific documentation, and a full set of documents is also available in the Developer Library. The online documentation is updated more regularly than the offline equivalent included with the SDK. Significant updates will be announced in this blog.

Welcome to the "N9 Developer" blog.

This blog offers information straight from the source and bridges the gap between the MeeGo Developer Offering team and the developer community itself.

This is a multi-author blog by the team that is involved with the daily work of creating and improving the developer offering for the Nokia N9 device.

The most important task of the blog is to announce updates to tools, documentation and device images.

But this blog will be more than just a glorified news ticker. In future posts we plan to highlight individual development tools, device features (and the corresponding programming interfaces), best practices and such. We may also invite guest authors to cover topics that particularly interest them and you.

This blog is mainly geared for application developers, but platform developers may also find things of interest. The blog mostly deals with the Qt SDK, but occasional articles on alternative development environments and tools will also be published.