Best technology to build an inventory app for N97

[rodangib]

Hi folks,
I'm new to mobile development, though have a bit of hands on experience with webdev (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, XML)and would like some serious advice from the more experienced.

My scenario is as follows:

I own an N97 and work with my dad at his warehouse, and a few days ago I mentioned to him about going mobile on some tasks, such as inventory of the existing items as well as adding items.

We currently do it with pen and paper on a form and then enter the data manually into the sql db on his office pc.

Basically we'd like to be able to have an app that allows us to go aisle by aisle ticking off the items as we id them, and also be able to add/edit the lists and categorize the items accordingly. I have the details of navigation, itemization, etc, jotted down.

It doesn't sound like a fancy app but my question is basically about which technologies/tools for the symbian platform to use. Should I try building it as a WRT widget? Qt? C++? Java?

I must mention that I have downloaded and installed S60 SDK, Qt for Symbian and Windows, Carbide, Active Perl, AppTRK, OpenC/C++, etc.

Any serious advice will be extremely welcome.

PS: Please, don't recommend me to download any app that may be out there that could do the job. I would like to develop it myself. A pride thing, you know.

Thanks much.

[axeljaeger]

Because you have an SQL-Database on a PC, you might consider a solution that you can also use on the desktop. Qt was designed to create applications that run across different operating systems. I suggest either using Qt or WRT. If your current desktop solution already has a webinterface, it might be worth extending that to run on a small screen and then you could pack that into a WRT widget.

If you do not have any existing Web-thing, I suggest using Qt. It is well documented and the development environment (QtCreator) is really nice, also compared to what the competition offers. I have only tested Aptana Studio for WRT development and it is far away compared to what the competition offers for web development.

[rodangib]

Thanks Axel,

Will definitely then stick to build it as a WRT to start off with, as Qt looks really "cute" but I might feel a bit more comfortable with a web based approach for now. Will study Qt further and may migrate or rebuild the app with it at a later stage.

One more question that puzzles me a bit is regarding storing data on the mobile. Should I use an sql-ish approach, text based, xml, ??? What are your thoughts?

Thanks much.

Rod.

[axeljaeger]

Do you really need to store data on the phone? Can't you assume to be always online via wifi and have all the data stored on the server?

[danhicksbyron]

One more question that puzzles me a bit is regarding storing data on the mobile. Should I use an sql-ish approach, text based, xml, ??? What are your thoughts?

Depends on what you're going to do with the data. If it's just going to be archived away then a sequential text file is the simplest -- comma-separated, tab-separated, ID-text pairs, whatever works. If you'll want to randomly access the data on the phone, then probably a (cough) SQL database is the way to go. If the data's going to be recorded on the phone and then read by another application then you'd want to see what the other application likes the best. Eg, writing in XML to a sequential file is fairly easy to do, without the need for any add-ons. (But if you want to read it you should probably use a DOM implementation.)

Also consider how you might want to segment the data -- one file for each day's work, etc. Easy to do with sequential files, a little uglier with SQL.