Archived:Carbide.vs Overview

Warning: Following the withdrawal of Carbide.vs, Nokia Developer no longer supports the Microsoft Visual Studio IDE for Symbian C++ development.

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Overview

Nokia Developer has determined that, now that Carbide.c++ 2.0 is available free of charge, Carbide.vs no longer offers a strategic development option for Symbian C++ development. As a result, Nokia Developer has withdrawn both Carbide.vs 2.0 and Carbide.vs 3.0. If you need access to a copy of Carbide.vs for archive purposes, please contact feedback.carbide@nokia.com.

For more information read the Q&A here »

Carbide.vs was a set of tools that enable Symbian C++ application development using the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 and Symbian OS SDKs. The release of better products and the minimal support provides now means that the use of the new products like Net60 see Category:.NET

Carbide.vs is targeted at developers with Visual Studio skills who want to create C++ applications for Symbian OS platforms. The new products like Net60 see the from Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 C# mean that the obselete version are no longer suported by Microsoft

Key Features were:

• Visual Studio look and feel

All these feature are available in Carbide.c++ 2.0 with registration for free

• Support for development with multiple SDKs
• Project import and creation functions
• Automatic maintenance of key Symbian OS files
• Fully incremental project build for emulator use

Visual Studio 2003

Visual Studio 2003 is the previous version of this IDE before Visual Studio 2005. In this version, you can:

• Develop mobile websites with ASP.NET Mobile Controls. Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Web Developer are recommended for use at this time.
• Develop C++ Symbian applications using the plugin Carbide.vs.

This is a commercial IDE and doesn't have free versions (as 2005 has).

Installing Carbide.Vs is the best way to get started coding in Symbian C++. There are templates that allow coding for different application needs for different SDK's. Templates are available from simple helloworld to client/server applications.

Not only it facilitates ease of development it is also very useful for application debugging.

Visual Studio 2003 does not provide on-device-debugging.

Visual Studio 2005

Visual Studio 2005 is the last IDE from Microsoft to develop applications under the .NET Platform and C++.

Mobile Development

For Nokia mobile developers, VS 2005 offers the following options:

• Develop dynamic websites for mobile devices (WAP), as phones with ASP.NET Mobile Controls. This platforms produces properly WML, HTML or XHTML Mobile Profile depending on mobile characteristics.
• Symbian c++: You should Develop applications for Symbian in C++ 2.0 using the latest version of , Carbide.vs 3.0. Download Carbide.vs 3.0 from Nokia Developer has been removed for new users.

Versions

Visual Studio 2005 comes in many versions, including free ones called "Express Versions" which includes:

• Visual Web Developer Express: a free IDE to develop ASP.NET Mobile Web pages.
• Visual C++ Express

You can download free versions from http://www.microsoft.com/express

Note that the Express tools cannot be extended and hence are not supported by Carbide.vs 3.0

UPDATE: 2009 Microsoft has now restricted use of Community (formerly Express) version to develop products for use on Microsoft platforms in the Licensing statement. This also has a requirement for Academic use. This means not for commercial software development.

ATTENTION Carbide.vs 3.0.1 Users:

Some users have experienced problems with linking their programs when using the WINSCW compiler found in Carbide.vs. The following procedure instructs users how to patch their installation with an updated WINSCW compiler.

• Download patch - Compiler Patch Kit
• Unzip to carbide.vs root directory (C:\Nokia\Tools\Carbide.vs30\ by default)
• Answer 'yes' to questions about overwriting existing files

This patch contains build 473 of the WINSCW compiler. It fixes the "LNK1318: Unexpected PDB error"-problem. The new compiler will be included in the 3.0.2 version of Carbide.vs.

Other useful links:

• Carbide.vs 2.0.1 and 2.0.2 Tips and Known Issues.
• Carbide.vs - Disabling the MMP/PKG File update feature.

Tip: Say you have just installed an SDK that you believe is supported by Carbide.vs. However, while you are creating a new project, you see that in the Enable/Disable SDK the SDK you have just installed cannot be checked or unchecked. The path and other details are listed but the SDK column says that it is 'not available'. This means that you have installed an SDK that is not meant for Visual Studio. Installing the right SDK will solve this issue.