Nokia Developer Blogs

N-Desk: Making you love your Nokia more!

OviPublisherSuccesses — 2011-11-17T16:09:31Z

Mobile developer Anderson has been studying Symbian programming since 2005, when touch screen phones were few and far between. But when the popularity of touch screen phones began to spread, so too did consumers’ demand for apps. So in 2010, Anderson decided to apply his programming skills to mobile app development, and developed N-Desk.

N-Desk is a desktop app which provides a sliding menu and variable key lock options. The app runs on Nokia’s S60 touch screen phones and provides users with an easy way to manage applications in a fun and creative way. The N-Desk application enables users to slide the screen and change the icons’ positions seamlessly and customize the image color, background picture, menu icons’ layout and text color. Anderson’s one-man company is gaining popularity through Nokia Store, with over 2 million downloads of N-Desk to date.

N-Desk Development and Results

Leveraging the Symbian API, Anderson combined a keylocker API to create the lock/unlock screen functions in addition to sensors that enable users to lock and unlock their screens without using the physical keys. The first version took Bai only a few weeks to create, and even less time to update and create new versions, as Nokia’s free signing program made it easy to distribute. Anderson offers both a free and paid version, with the paid version having no ads and multiple skins available to users online. After developing several apps, Anderson decided to reach users around the globe, and turned to the Nokia Store to do so. With help from various developers from Germany and Italy, Bai En created localized versions of his applications to broaden the appeal and gain exposure of N-Desk.

Unlike other channels, the Nokia Store really allows developers to localize apps beyond translation, making them both relevant and more appealing to a broader audience. The Nokia Store, available in more than 190 countries, and in 32 languages, makes it easier for developers to receive feedback and advice from other developers, and review the latest feedback from users all over the world. After receiving an overwhelming amount of downloads through the Nokia Store, Bai was able to tweak and perfect his application based on user feedback from around the globe.

“I enjoy it when I receive good feedback from users, and I use their criticisms to help improve my application,” said Bai En. “Leveraging the Nokia Store’s global reach and popular platform has given N-Desk the exposure it needs to be successful.’ Now available in more than 190 markets worldwide, N-Desk continues to garner downloads every day, and is available in both a free and paid version.

First Microsoft-Nokia App Introduced

pkrass — 2010-05-06T09:00:59Z

Microsoft and Nokia have launched the first application of the mobile-productivity alliance the two companies formed last August. The new application, Microsoft Communicator Mobile for Nokia, is a unified communications client that connects directly with a company's communications systems to streamline mobile collaboration. Owners of Nokia E72 and Nokia E52 smartphones can download the English version now from Nokia's Ovi Store. Looking ahead, the two companies plan to deliver Communicator Mobile for Nokia pre-installed on select Nokia smartphones; they also plan to support additional devices, including the new Nokia E5.

Learn more about the application’s debut.

Learn to Design and Optimise Websites for Cross-Platforms

pkrass — 2010-05-05T09:00:27Z

Speed website loading times on mobile devices by compressing, combining, and caching data. Change CSS dynamically for wider and narrower screens. Don’t force users to enter long textual data. These are just some of the many tips included in a new Forum Nokia document that shows developers how to design and optimise websites for Maemo, iPhone, Android, and S60/Symbian devices. Nokia devices covered in the document include the Nokia N900, Nokia N97 and N97 Mini, Nokia X6, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, and Nokia N79.

Download a copy of the new Nokia document, Cross-Browser Guidelines.

Symbian^3 UI Design Preview

neois — 2010-02-15T11:27:42Z

I just found video preview about Symbian^3 UI Design in Nokia Conversation website and can't wait to share it here. :)

Symbian^3 will come with multiple homescreen page for a bunch of widgets. Device will be powered by hardware acceleration, so UI should perform much faster and will certainly follow by better gaming experience. The most impressive thing is "Visual Multi-Tasking" which allow you to see every window opened visually.

So, check it out:

Source: Nokia Conversation

VideoTutorial Qt en unos minutos: Ep1, Como Localizar Aplicaciones con QTranslator

rdrincon — 2010-02-13T22:46:26Z

Hola,

Este será el primero de varios episodios en donde mostraré cómo hacer algunas cosas prácticas e interesantes con Qt. Como ya hay bastante documentación en inglés, decidí hacerlo esta vez en mi idioma nativo .... (Viva el español! )

Hoy les mostraré cómo utilizar las herramientas de localización de Qt, que no tienen nada que ver con ubicación sino que nos permiten "localizar" facilmente cualquier aplicación a otros idiomas.

Vamos a utilizar,
Carbide C++
consola de windows
Qt Linguist
SDK S60 5ed de Nokia

para tener detalles de como instalarl las herramientas, pueden visitar la librería de Forum Nokia en http://library.forum.nokia.com

VIDEOTUTORIAL

Para acceder al videotutorial completo, haz click en el siguiente link:

Como Localizar Aplicaciones con QTranslator

Quisiera hacer un par de aclaraciones que les pueden servir si tienen algún inconveniente:

1. Carbide C++ es una excelente herramienta para desarrollar Qt. Lastimosamente a veces se encuentra una que otra cosa por corregir y yo encontré esta: Cuando uno realiza una interfaz gráfica en Qt, se genera una instancia en el archivo .h referenciando la interfaz gráfica, normalmente llamada ui . En algunas ocaciones CarbideC++ no hace el indexado correctamente, de tal forma que cuando queremos utilizar algún componente de esta instancia ui y presionamos CTRL+Space para tener la lista de atributos y métodos, no vemos nada. Una solución, es cambiar el nombre de esta instancia, por ejemplo renombrar a gui . Después de eso, el indexado se hace correctamente. Recuerda cambiarlo en el archivo .h como en el .cpp.

2. Para que lupdate funcione correctamente dentro del folder de tu proyecto, el path debe estar definido correctamente. Si no lo está, en windows debes ir a las variables de entorno y agregar al path la dirección del folder bin de Qt. Por ejemplo: C:\Qt\4.6.0\bin;

Buena Suerte

:Rubén

S^4 User Interface Concept Proposal

neois — 2010-01-15T13:46:58Z

As you guys might already known that Symbian UI will be redesigned. Here is the Symbian^4 UI concept that just be summited by Nokia on 14 January 2010.

Description:

The S^4 user interface primary objective is tosimplify the S60 user experience by:

- renewed layouts (see Butterfly Diagrambelow)

- context menu support for list items

- flattened command distribution withelimination of ‘tunneling’ Options commands

- Applications Library replaces Main Menu

- four user-facing libraries: Contacts,Music, Photos, Applications

- Homescreen supports irregularly shapedHomescreen widgets, free placement of Homescreen widgets, and improved move anddelete functions for Homescreen widgets

- guidelines for autosaving content reduceSave commands

- improved task switcher minimizes Exitcommands and provides improved visual access to backgrounded ‘continuousexperience’ applications (e.g., music playback, active call, etc.)

- prompts to users minimized

- redesigned Control Panel andsettings/personalization information architecture

- refocused Power menu includes master volumeand vibra on/off controls

- interaction and layout patterns applied toall applications

Full document could be found here.

If you have any comment or suggestion, the discussion is opened for this proposal at http://developer.symbian.org/forum/showthread.php?p=14433#post14433.

- Sittiphol Phanvilai

[Freeware] NorthPole for E72 : Turn your E72 to compass!

neois — 2009-12-18T21:53:21Z

Here is my latest application for smart and nice device like E72. NorthPole is small utility that will turn your E72 to accurate compass. Application also provide full instruction to calibrate magnetometer for the most accurate result it can be.

Interesting? Please download it at http://www.neuvex.com/products/northpole/ . It's all FREE. ;)

Any feedback or suggestion is welcome!

- Sittiphol Phanvilai

Carbide 2.3 and QT tip

Paul.Todd — 2009-11-19T02:04:38Z

I have recently started investigating using QT since its the new Nokia hot topic!

After installing carbide.c++ 2.3 beta I imported a QT project I had written for the desktop and got this error when opening anything to do with QT

"org.eclipse.swt.SWTException: Class ID not found in registry"

The trick to getting rid of this error message is to register the QT DLL's. Look in the folder "configuration\qt" under your carbide installation root folder and there you will find a bat file called "register_plugins.bat" which you will need to run.

This registers all the COM objects eclipse needs and the integrated tools will now work...

Load your application in a running emulator

ltomuta — 2009-11-09T17:00:49Z

Everybody loves to hate the Symbian SDK emulator. The first reaction to it usually is: "It is slow, really slooooooow, it takes ages to start it" ;)

Yes, it is true, the emulator is slow, but considering the task it has to perform and the complexity of the system it emulates such slowness is to be expected. However, the problem is not as bad as one may think. Yes, the emulator takes time to load, but then why don't you start it in advance and let it load while you browse your recent emails, so that you have it up-and-running at the moment you really need it.

Many developers already with some Symbian experience will tell you that you cannot do that. But yes, you can! The following video will show a basic Qt application being created, built and run into an already running emulator.

Coming up next: Rebuild without restarting the emulator.

Build without an SDK, test without a device

ltomuta — 2009-11-08T17:50:08Z

How many SDKs do I need? Which SDK is best for me?

For a newcomer to the Symbian development world those are among the first questions asked. There are many S60 SDKs on offer, some with feature packs and plugins, some with compiler specific binaries and on top of that many plug-ins. Quite a lot to handle and figure out and nobody likes having all possible SDKs installed.

So what will happen now that Qt is added to the picture? I can design my app using Qt for Windows (or Linux, or Mac) and, according to the "code once, compile anywhere" promise I should be able now to compile this application for Symbian and Maemo devices, with minimal changes. But that means that now I need to install at least one Symbian SDK for building, or a Maemo one, and I should have at least one smartphone for testing. Or do I?

Yes, probably one will have an SDK installed and use its emulator for testing some really complicated solutions, with Symbian components part of the design. And yes, nothing can really replace hand-on-testing. But for simple use cases and for getting started trials one possible solution could be building and testing in the cloud. What you need is an IDE plugin, web hosted SDK and build tools and Forum Nokia's Remote Device Access solution, all mixed together in a rather simple build, deploy and test solution.

Here's a live demo (boring parts speeded-up a bit) of such a solution:

So, what do you think? Do you like the idea? Would you use it for your projects?

The ultimate* software installer debug guide

ltomuta — 2009-09-29T19:17:29Z

There are many things that can go wrong with a SIS installation package and unfortunately the software installer component provides no logging mechanism for developers to be able to precisely pinpoint the point of failure. Even the errors returned by the installer engine are filtered out so that the UI layer gets the minimal set of rather generic error messages to display for the user. But while “Unable to install” tells all the user needs to know about the fact that the application will not show up in his/her Applications menu, that message offers no hint as to what exactly the application developer should be fixing in order to have a successful install.

Over time developers have created a comprehensive list of error messages and possible resolutions for the problem. In this blog post I will provide an up-to-date and hopefully complete list of errors as well as a nice little hack that will allow a bit more detailed resolution of the root cause of the error.

The hack, available on S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 and later Symbian based devices, consists in creating one “flag” file, c:\temp\swierrors.txt. If this file exists the software installer’s UI will augment the error message with the actual error code which triggered the error message currently displayed. See below screen captures showing the same install time error without and then with the flag file created.

Here are the error messages and the extra bit of information that can be squeezed out of them:

"Update error"
                 4 Cannot overwrite file
                43 An upgrade failed because the package being installed is not a valid upgrade of the package on the device.
                45 The package contains an invalid eclipsing file which is already in the device other than ROM.
"Cannot install! This component is built-in!"
                5 The file is already in ROM and cannot be eclipsed
"File is corrupted!"
                17 File to install is not a recognized SISX file.
                14 A file needed to proceed cannot be found.
                13 A filename given inside the SISX package is not valid.
                9 SISX file corrupt, checksums stored in file do not match computed value.
"Unable to install. Disk not present."
                10 A removable media drive had no media while trying to access it.
"Cannot read file!"
                11 We cannot read a file which is needed for us to proceed.
"Cannot delete file!"
                12 We are forbidden to delete a certain file.
"Unable to install. Insufficient memory."
                19 There is not enough free memory for installer's UI components (e.g. drive selection dialog) to be constructed and displayed.
                15 There was insufficient space left on the drive to perform an operation.
"Cannot grant capabilities requested by the application"
                16 The applications requires system capability it is not signed for.
"Certificate check failed. Contact application supplier."
                20 Cannot find the certificate.
                21 An error has occurred during signature validation.
                22 There is no signature to verify.
                23 The signature could not be validated.
                24 The certificate is not trusted for code signing usage.
                25 Cannot find the certificate policies.
                26 A signature resolving to one of the mandatory certificate cannot be found.
"Only signed applications can be installed. Check your Installation settings in Application Manager."
                42 The signature validates correctly, but chains back to a self-signed root
"Certificate expired"
                36 Certificate expired"
Certificate validity dates do not match with the phone's date. Check your date settings."
                37 Certificate validity dates do not match with the phone's date
"Online certificate check could not be conducted. Check your settings."
                30 The OCSP server reply is invalid.
                27 The OCSP server URL provided is invalid.
                29 It was not possible to validate the OCSP server response signature.
"Online certificate check failed."
                28 It is not possible to obtain the certificate status.
                31 The certificate status information is invalid.
                32 The certificate status is unknown.
                35 The certificate status is unknown, but this is expected for self-signed.
"Certificate revoked"
                33 The certificate has been revoked.
"Cannot install. Access denied."
                34 Attempt to perform illegal operation
"Unable to install. Install the base package first."
                18 A base package was missing when installing an augmentation or a partial upgrade
"Cannot uninstall partial upgrades"
                41 Partial update package cannot be uninstalled.
"Cannot install a protected application from untrusted supplier"
                36 The package contains a file with a protected SID which is not signed for.
                40 The package contains a file with a protected VID which is not signed for.
                44 The package uid is protected but not signed for.
"Unable to install. Constrained by the certificate."
                38 Constraints imposed by a developer mode certificate have been exceeded.
"Unable to install" or "Uninstallation failed"
                6 Missing a dependency.
                7 A dependency exists on a specific version of an application which is different from the one installed.
                8 A dependency requires a version of an application which is greater than the one installed.
                3 Anything and everything else.

Of course, obeying Murphy’s law, most of the error messages we’re likely to see will be still "Unable to install (3)" so don’t forget to consult and update the developer contributed list of common PKG scripting mistakes.

Update: The attached sis file can be used to easily create (and remove) the flag file on/from your device. My only request would be not to deploy such hack (be it this or the errrd one) with your application. It might make some limited sense on beta deployments but there's no need to "improve" end-user's experience with it.

*Read "ultimate" as the best we have so far. Hopefuly at some point the installer will have a logging feature (currently enabled in debug builds only) which would let us read directly and exactly what the problem was and where.

A Conversation with Jan Ole Suhr, the Driving Force Behind Gravity

JasonBlack — 2009-09-16T15:52:27Z

Jan Ole Suhr, from Mobileways.de in Berlin, Germany, is the developer behind the smash-hit Twitter app called Gravity. If you have not heard of Gravity before, it is likely that you work for a company that does not develop Symbian applications ... And if you Tweet from your Nokia S60-based device, Gravity has quickly become the app of choice for those in the know.

We recently had a chance to catch up with Jan, and learn more about his experience creating – and now continually refining – Gravity. His story demonstrates the potential that many of us see in "apps" for Nokia mobile devices, and serves to inspire developers around the world. Read the Q&A below to learn about his experience; discover his sources for inspiration; and learn what he suggests other developers working in the mobile space should try to do. His answers might surprise you!

Q: Why did you decide to create Gravity? What was your inspiration?

A: I was using Twitter for quite a while before starting with Gravity.

Once I got more and more friends on Twitter, I figured that I needed a good client on my phone. With all the buzz around mobile Twitter clients for the iPhone, I thought there must be something similar or even better for S60, too. At the same time, a couple of friends asked me to write a native Twitter client for S60. I decided that Gravity could become a showcase product of what you can do with S60 and Symbian if you just tried hard - and at the same time I was programming it for my personal needs.

Q: How long did it take to finish the original version of the app?

A: I started working on Gravity around the end of January 2009 and released the first version on 30 March of 2009. I was reusing a lot of code from earlier projects, though. A lot of time went into designing the user interface and version 1.0 was lacking quite a lot of features I initially wanted to have in the first release. I still decided to publish early because of the tremendous feedback and interest spurred by the beta testers.

Q. Tell us about your ongoing efforts to improve/refine the app – we read recently that you are regularly working to fix minor bugs and add new features … Does it ever end?

A: Right after I released the first version of Gravity, I was flooded with feature requests and bug reports. At the same time, I received a lot of positive feedback and comments praising Gravity, so I realised I couldn't just stop with version 1.0. And, of course, there really were a lot of features missing that I needed myself. Luckily, the bug reports concentrated on three or four major flaws which I was able to fix pretty quickly. Fixing bugs isn't much fun, but adding new features is great!

And then a mutual process started which is still in place: users of Gravity were asking for features, and once some of the features were released, I received a lot of postive feedback and also, new feature requests. So the process started again: adding and releasing features, lots of positive comments, and new feature requests. This has become very encouraging and almost addictive.

Q. What helped you to decide that this needed to be a Symbian application – instead of Java, or other technology?

A: I've been programming in Symbian C++ for the past six years, so for me, there was never really a decision to be made about which platform to choose.

Q: Were there any particular problems that you encountered along the way? If so, how did you resolve those issues?

A: The biggest obstacle I'm still facing is the network connectivity.

In theory, it's pretty easy to write good wrappers for HTTP-based APIs in Symbian. But in practise, making an application "compatible" with all the wireless networks in the world seems to be very complex. Add some misconfigurations and inconsistencies with the Access Point / Network Destinations user interface to this, and you've got support work for years to come!

The other big issue was – and is – Symbian Signed. Some features are still missing or not working 100% correctly, because Gravity is self-signed and not Symbian Signed. I have chosen to avoid Symbian Signed for the moment because of my current pace releasing beta and “final” versions of Gravity. There's no solution to this right now, but I've heard that the Symbian Foundation is working on it.

One more issue is the user interface (UI) for Gravity. This is the most important part of the application, because the UI is what makes Gravity so exciting. It wanted it to look as polished as the UI of an iPhone application. But there are two problems: first, I am just a developer and "designing" a UI and picking colours just takes ages for me. Second, we've got dozens of different LCDs to design for, and also keypad and touch-based phones. As an example, a gradient might look great on the N95, but on the E61i, you barely see any difference between the dark and the light colours. Creating a UI that works on both keypad and touch-screen phones, that can be compiled from the same source, and still give the best user experience, was another tricky thing to overcome.

Q: Has the popularity of Gravity helped to expose consumers to other apps you have created?

A: That's very difficult to say. I'm currently not doing any statistics that could prove an increase of sales for the other main product I'm offering. The other application is a tool for remote controlling S60 phones, so maybe it's just a completely different group of potential users than people being interested in Gravity. On the other hand, my website did see an enormous increase in traffic after the release of Gravity.

Q. And, does work on Gravity mean less time for other projects? How do you balance that out?

A: I'm currently working 100% on Gravity because of its success and because it's so much pleasure to get the positive feedback when releasing new features.

Q: Tell me about your design decisions and the reasoning behind them. What did you want Gravity to do that you won’t find in other Twitter apps?

A: I wanted Gravity to become the best mobile Twitter client - not just on S60, but for all platforms; and I especially wanted it to be better than what you find on the iPhone. The iPhone has a superb UI/UX, so that's why I spent so much time on the user interface of Gravity. There's still a way to go to achieving this goal, but I think I'm on the right track. It's great to see so much interest in a Symbian/S60 application, because nowadays the iPhone platform tends to dominate so much of the tech news we see.

I also wanted Gravity to run in the background and notify me of new tweets or direct messages - a feature that was impossible to have on the iPhone (before v 3.0).

Feature-wise, when it came to releasing Gravity, there were no mobile Twitter clients with support for Groups and multiple saved searches. These two features are very important to me, because otherwise I wouldn't be able to keep up with the news on Twitter.

Q: Did you get advice or feedback from other developers in the Forum Nokia community - or through Nokia employees - as you worked on this app?

I regularly visit the Wiki at forum.nokia.com, because it's such a great repository of code examples. Of course, there was also feedback from Nokia employees, but this was more on a personal basis.

Q: What advice would you give to other developers - particularly those who are just starting out - when it comes to creating mobile apps for Nokia devices?

A: I would suggest several things:

Buy yourself an iPod Touch. Seriously! It is a great investment to check out the UI and UX. Then go create something similar or better on S60, please!
If you've got a networking application, the first thing to implement is an auto-update feature to check for the latest release of your app. Never, never ever release a version without this. Never! Especially if you're part of a small development company. You'll lose a lot of customers, because they will still manage to find version 1.0 from three years ago, even though you've already released version 4.x.
Programme the application for yourself and try to make money with it. Granted, that's not always possible, but try to use the application as long and as often as possible. Use all of the features to get an idea of how your app works – is it easy to use? What's missing and what's not working at all?
Think of how to make money with your app first (only if you need to make money with it, of course.) Do not postpone this decision. It's not going to be easier to release a "Pro" version after some time than to think about making money right from the start.
Try to get some beta testers that are as enthusiastic about your app as you are! The feedback will help a lot if you get yourself into a dead end or just feel frustrated by bugs, and whatnot.

Now, some ideas you can use:

Learn more about Mobileways.de
Take a look at Gravity in Ovi Store
Follow Jan Ole Suhr on Twitter

Update (17 September): As noted in the first comment below, Gravity is one of the apps up for the CTIA 2009 Hot for the Holidays web vote award, for the Best Mobile Consumer Application. Show your support for Gravity by marking the app as a Favorite. Vote Now.

Update (18 September): 10-Day Free Trial of Gravity is now available in Ovi Store. Try before you buy.

N97 - firmware upgrades should not have been the answer to bad and sluggish UI

amitkankani — 2009-08-25T12:30:10Z

Nokia N97 indeed is one of the best devices around in terms of the vaious features it provides. It can be easily categorized under Premium Device anyone would want to own. However not matching to its stature is the software built into it, specially the UI.

Nokia has been known for improving the software with newer firmware updates, and has been successfully doing it for all devices including N95, N96, 5800 XpressMusic, and others.

However, for a device like N97, I truly think it was not the right approach to launch the device with a firmware not so good and then release better firmware. The device software, as most of you would agree has UI not appreciable, in-fact it coming 2 years or more later to iPhone, should have matched if not bettered the UI. I do assume that the future firmware for N97 will have better responsive UI and better RAM utilization, however, the initial launch is what hits me.

My friends to whom I recommended the N97 say that the UI is really bad and the phone keeps hanging, because the firmware was old one, and then finally he returned the device and chose another one. However, after paying more than 33,000 Rs in India (and I am sure the price is equally high in all currencies around the globe), he was not expecting to be told to wait for the right firmware.

So my main worry is that, while it is a great idea to keep updating the firmwares to improve the software on phone for devices, it is not the case with devices which cost so much. Nokia needs to understand the different user bases it has and server the different User types differently. I hope Nokia would in future pay special attention to Premium devices it offers.

P.S. I am a die-hard fan of Nokia and would prefer a Nokia device even with this problem I mentioned earlier, as I am aware of the firmware updates. But I wanted Nokia not to make descisions which could drive users away.

Nokia N97 SDK v1.0 released

ltomuta — 2009-07-16T17:00:00Z

Those engaged in developing applications for Nokia N97 will be interested to know that the final version of the Nokia N97 SDK has been released today.

The new SDK version provides:

Improved support of home screen features.
Updated SDK documentation.
Support for the Chinese version of the full keyboard.
Updated example applications.
Updated default emulator theme.
Fixes for all other important bugs.

Read more about features and known issues in SDK's release notes.

It is probably worth making clear a few points about this SDK:

Nokia N97 is and S60 5th Edition (Symbian^1) device and it is fully compatible that that platform release. Any application developed for S60 5th Edition devices using the S60 5th Edition (Symbian^1) SDK will be compatible with smartphone as well.
The Nokia N97 SDK is only provided as an alternative, mostly beneficial to those developing applications targeting N97's specific features, features not supported by the platform release and thus not supported by other devices based on it, as for example the home screen widgets.
While the APIs in the S60 5th Edition SDK are covered by platform's binary compatibility promise, all the additional device specific APIs provided by the Nokia N97 SDKs are provided "as is", without binary compatibility promise.

That's it. Enjoy the new release and don't forget to let us know what you think about it.

Qt for S60 "Tower" demo running on Nokia N97

ltomuta — 2009-06-25T21:30:10Z

Qt for S60 "Tower" released

ltomuta — 2009-06-25T19:00:42Z

You will most probably be glad to hear fresh news from the Qt for S60 port team. They have a new release* out, it is called Tower and it is based on Qt 4.5.2.

There are many new things and many improvements on the existing features, you can see them all listed in the Detailed list of changes for "Tower". To name just a few:

"Experimental" support for QtWebkit (must be enabled at configuration time)
Phonon support but without the actual playback capabilities.
QtSql with sqlite3 backend
Improved exceptions safety for Qt Core library (this comes with a patch for the Nokia C/C++ compiler and some really promissing documentation, judging by the title )
Input methods

All these and a lot more in an 126 MB binary installer which is smart enough to detect all compatible SDKs in your system and install "Tower" support in all of them. (From what I see the installer needs a bit of optimization or I need a new computer )

You can find all the binaries, documentation and support information on the Qt for S60 "Tower" pre-release site. Coming soon support for Samsung's S60 devices, an updated version of the Qt for S60 Developer Library here on Forum Nokia and a new release of the Mobility Extensions APIs.

*Please note that this is still a technology preview release and it is not yet ready for production grade application development.

More Symbian Foundation beta invites

ltomuta — 2009-05-15T10:00:06Z

You may have seen in Mark's recent post an invitation to become a Symbian Foundation site beta ~~tester~~ user. Don't worry about missing the deadline and no, you don't have to become a Twitter user just to get an invitation, the invitations are here, one message away for you.

So, are you a software developer curious about the new Symbian Foundation web site? Want to be the first one posting a technical question on that forum? Want to be the first one who answers one? Want to see open sourced code? Let's do it then, let's get you in!

Who can get an invitation?
Any Symbian C++ developer active in the Forum Nokia developer community.

How many invitations are available?
There are enough for everyone. However, the distribution process is manual and time consuming so the most active contributors on the Forum Nokia Discussions Board & Wiki will have priority.

How can I apply?
To get the username and password that will give you access to the web site all you have to do is send me a private message through the Forum Nokia Discussions Board. Easy!

Filling a gap of Mobile Extensions

olympio — 2009-05-11T20:04:15Z

The mobile extensions released some time ago had the lack of Bluetooth support. Bluetooth communication is very important in many applications especially in games. To fill in this gap students of the Federal University of Campina Grande (Brazil) have developed some C++ wrappers to Symbian OS Bluetooth APIs so that Qt and Open C++ developers can use then with no knowledge of Symbian/C++ programming.

More information can be found in http://efforts.embedded.ufcg.edu.br/symbiancpp/?p=30

Notice that this is the first release of the API.

We hope to get feedback from everybody to improve whatever is needed.

Nokia and Aptana announce new version of WRT plug-in for Aptana Studio

DevSummitCrew — 2009-04-28T17:52:56Z

Good news for developers coming out of the Nokia Developer Summit today - well, loads of good news, really, but let's take one thing at a time.

Nokia and Aptana announced the latest version of the Nokia WRT Plugin for Aptana Studio, which "lets web developers easily create, package and deploy a whole new range of mobile applications (widgets!) that integrate with the underlying systems and software on a mobile device."

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WRT widgets can easily be installed, and they make use of things like the device's contact list and calendar data, determine the device's location, find landmarks within an area, send and get SMS messages, receive information from a device sensor, such as an accelerometer and more on Nokia S60 5th edition devices including the forthcoming Nokia N97.

eWeek has a good report about the new release online today. More about today's announcements @Nokia Developer Summit available from Nokia Conversations.

Series 60 5th Edition SDK 1.0 finally out

neois — 2009-03-07T17:27:19Z

After a long await, at last Series 60 5th Edition SDK 1.0 is available now.

Here is the changelog:

The standard three softkeys in the emulator’s keypad-off display.
Support for the Chinese, Arabic, and Urdu languages. (Support for the Arabic and Urdu languages is provided by SDK plug-ins.)
Start-up progress indicator, which is visible when the emulator is minimised.
A number of issues have been resolved and deficiencies removed (see release notes for details).

The package size is much bigger that the previous one. The new one size is 622MB while the v0.9 one size is 499MB only.

Click here to go to download page

Google Translator Widget for S60 WRT

wmseto — 2009-01-27T00:38:49Z

First happy (lunar) new year!

Story: This morning I wanted to send some Chinese SMS msgs from my phone, because today was the Lunar New Year. However, I couldn't find a way to give me easy translated strings... I searched a bit on the Internet; there were some S60 WRTs already, but none seemed to let me cut and paste the results... I was suprised no one (at least I couldn't find) had created a Google Translate version for S60. So I had done the engineer's way, write it myself; here I go... I wrote the whole thing in less then 20 min. Believe me, it took more time to upload the widget to MOSH, create the preview pictures, and write this post to tell you about it.

Comments and suggestions are welcome. If there are updates, I will post the links in this post or my personal blog here.

Some tips:

1) If you interested in reading more about Google AJAX Lanaguage API, here is the link: http://code.google.com/apis/ajaxlanguage/documentation/#Examples

2) If your favorite language(s), are not there you can change the code your self. Go into the widget index.html and change this section

    <select id="tlang">
    <option value="zh-TW">Chinese Trad</option>
    <option value="zh-CN">Chinese Simpl</option>
    <option value="en">English</option>
    <option value="fi">Finish</option>
      <option value="fr">French</option>
    <option value="de">German</option>
      <option value="it">Italian</option>
      <option value="ja">Japanese</option>
    <option value="ko">Korean</option>
    <option value="pt">Portuguese</option>
    <option value="es">Spanish</option>
    </select><br/>

(there are other resources about widget development, for example here, so I am not going into that here.)

That is really, now here is the link in to download and install the widget:

Here is the first (0.1) version: GoogleTranslator0.1.wgz

Update 01:
I have put the index.html on my web, you can use any browser to use this web app (S40 and others):
http://camelot.net/stage/gtranslator/

Update 02, 2009.02.01:
Symbian Freak site has reported this widget, thanks guys! link

Update 03, 2009.02.25:
This widget has made top 10 freeware for Samsung over at AllAboutSymbian.com, thanks Steve! link

Update 04, 2009.04.06:
Since MOSH will be closing shortly, I have moved the widget file to this site. The link above is updated. Unforunately, I will not have the capability to track how many people have downloaded the widget... My last count of user download from MOSH is...

Update 05: 2009.04.18
If you are a developer and enjoy reading this, you might also be interested in my new article on Turn my S60 WRT into an iPhone app: http://blogs.forum.nokia.com/blog/forum-nokia-web-talks/2009/04/19/turn-my-s60-wrt-widget-to-an-iphone-app

Update 06: 2009.08.28

I suddenly decided to make a demo video... for no reason... kinda fun

- Wai Seto

MicroWeather for S60 goes Open Source

tote_b5 — 2009-01-22T10:23:18Z

I usually don't write about specific mobile software, but this time it's a bit different. You know, it's one thing that one of my colleagues, Jouni Miettunen, became a Forum Nokia Championlast time thanks to his active participation in Python for S60community. I'm really proud of him, he really deserved the honour.

But it seems that the spirit of open source software has "infected" another colleague of mine. Gabor Fetter, author of MicroPool (a bestseller in its category), MicroPinball and MicroWeather has now decided to make his last piece of software open source. I'm not going into praising MicroWeather, let it be enough that I use it daily. For more information, you can check out the official page at http://sourceforge.net/projects/microweathers60/. But you can do more than being in read-only mode: why not contribute to it? Any ideas, contribution are welcome!

I'm happy to see that we're that agile! ;-)

Tote
mobile-thoughts.blogspot.com

S60 development on Windows 7

ltomuta — 2009-01-15T11:00:40Z

One of the first comments to my S60 SDK and tools on Windows Vista - a success story article was that we should hurry up with making the tools compatible with Vista because what do you know, Windows 7 is around the corner and we will be again trailing behind ... :)

Well, Windows 7 (beta, Ultimate edition) is now available for download and is surprisingly stable. On a modest IBM Thinkpad T41 the OS installs ok and although it has some bells and whistles disabled (or because of that, after all Aero is cute but resource hungry) I find it to be fast and fresh ...

So, how do Carbide (now version 2.0) and the S60 SDK (now the S60 5th Edition SDK v0.9) behave on this Windows release?

As with Vista, the key is to be careful and as much as possible in control of what you're doing. There seems to be only two rules to follow: install the tools with admin rights and verify the result after each step.

I've followed roughly the same steps and compared with the previous results the following are to be noted:

The only ActivePerl package I've found for download was in *.msi format. This is basically a document to be handled by the Windows Installer and does not have a "Run as Administrator" option.
Holding the Shift key down while accessing the context menu one can find a "Run as other user..." option but in an attempt to use that I found out that the Administrator account was by default disabled.
I ended up enabling this account, setting a password for it and then running the Windows Installer from the command line (just to be sure):

> runas /noprofile /user:administrator "msiexec /i c:\users\lucian\desktop\ActivePerl-5.6.1.635-MSWin32-x86.msi"
Aside from this small complication all went ok and at the end I could verify that Perl was correctly added to the path and can be invoked (tools verification as described in How do I start programming for Symbian OS?).
As in the previous post, I've chose to install the GCC compiler myself rather than let the SDK setup to start it. However, despite running it with administrator privileges the installer was not able to modify the %PATH% environment variable so I had to edit it manually and set it as %PATH%=c:\Program Files\CSL Arm Toolchain\bin;%PATH%
The emulator is running OK with no hacks applied (like DEP deactivation), just the usual firewall blockage removal

That's it. Unofficially and with a "only for hackers" recommendation I declare the S60 development tools Windows 7 ready. :)

Btw, as in the previous tests, I found that I don't need the official Vista patch provided with the SDK or any of the many hacks documented in the Migrating to Windows Vista wiki article. Or at least I did not need them ... yet.

Mopoid Workshop - Your Own Arkanoid-like Game for S60

mopius — 2009-01-14T00:23:36Z

Develop a full-blown Arkanoid-like game - and play it!

Probably the largest and longest free workshop for S60 development is now available in a completely rewritten and updated version. The unique aspect: everything is explained based on a fully working Arkanoid-like game called Mopoid.

While reading through 76 pages and 175 slides, you will explore most of the important concepts behind Symbian OS / S60 – including using the UI designer of Carbide.c++, scalable vector graphics, localizable text and of course all the traditional topics like the cleanup stack, descriptors or periodic timers.

The Origins

In 2004, I prepared my very first Symbian OS workshop at the University of Applied Sciences in Hagenberg. Its aim was to give a compressed overview of the most important concepts of development for S60 – in form of a large, fully working game. Students would implement certain parts; the specialities of native Symbian OS C++ development were explained right when they were relevant. I still remember working through the whole night on the day before the workshop, testing everything ten times to make sure that everything really worked as expected.

The Update

Back then, the tutorial was based on the free Borland C++ Builder Mobile Edition, which already featured a UI designer. While the IDE had potential, it was slow and buggy. Soon after, it was abandoned.

The mobile world moves quickly, and the tutorial soon got outdated. Still based on S60 1st Edition, the game wouldn’t run on current devices. Also, Borland C++ Builder does no longer exist, with the (much better) Carbide.c++ IDE now being the standard for Symbian OS development.

As it would have been a pity to simply let dust settle on Mopoid and watch it disappear, I decided to take on the task of updating the tutorial for today’s environment. The game has now been greatly extended and improved - for example, it includes support for scalable screens. Of course, most parts of the tutorial had to be rewritten as well. The slides are completely new.

The Future

The workshop was just published on the Symbian Developer Network and is now also available from symbianresources.com. The whole tutorial might be a bit too steep if you don’t have any experience with Symbian OS at all, but for a little more advanced developers, it’ll be interesting to see how all the idioms and concepts fit together in a real game.

The source code is released using the GPL license. Mopoid already supports level files, saving the high score and much more. If someone wants to add more features or levels, it’d be great to release a polished game without some rough edges to the public in the future!

VideoTutorial: creando un Widget con Aptana Studio y el WRT S60 plugin

rdrincon — 2008-12-20T18:20:16Z

Una gran noticia para los desarrolladores de widgets. Nokia ha hecho el primer release de un plugin para Aptana Studio. Con este plugin se pueden elaborar widgets de una forma muy rápida. Como en algún lugar escuché: si una imagen vale mil palabras, un video vale un millón; por eso, aquí les dejo un videotutorial en donde se realiza un ejemplo completo de un Widget que utiliza el Google Language Ajax API para que vean lo fácil que es hacer un widget.

Pueden ver el videotutorial en el siguiente link: VIDEOTUTORIAL: WIDGET TRADUCTOR

En este link pueden descargar Aptana Studio:
http://aptana.com/

En este link encontrarán el WRT S60 plugin para Aptana:
http://aptana.com/nokia

En este link pueden descargar el ejemplo completo: Traductor

Nota:

Hay otro detalle del cual no hablo en el videotutorial pero con el que algunos pueden tener problemas:

Cuando se va a efectuar la transición en una pantalla que no ha tenido ningún cambio, algunas veces la pantalla no se refresca hasta que movemos el cursor sobre ella. Este inconveniente se resuelve utilizando la siguiente línea:

setTimeout('widget.performTransition();', 0);

en lugar de utilizar sólamente:

widget.performTransition();