Developer Newsletter February 2010
From Symbian Developer Community
Platform Opening
On February 4, 2010 the Symbian Foundation completed the open source release of the source code for the world’s most widely-used smartphone platform. The Symbian platform, which has been developed over more than 10 years and has shipped in more than 330 million devices around the world, is now completely open and the source code is available for free. The transition of this market-leading platform from proprietary code to open source is the largest in software history. The move has been completed four months ahead of schedule and provides the basis for unlimited mobile development based on innovation and openness. Whoever you are, you can look at the source and see how it works: You can experiment with it, you can try your own ideas and, most significantly, you can be part of the Symbian community.
Watch this video to learn about key features of the Symbian platform now open to everyone.
Simplifying Symbian Signed
The new version (v4.0.14) of the Symbian Signed Test Criteria came into effect on 5th January 2010. These criteria have been through several review cycles with the whole community getting involved, and are much simpler than the previous set. Don't forget that these criteria apply whether you are submitting to Certified Signed or whether your application is submitted to Express Signed and chosen for audit. Whichever signing option you're using, the new criteria apply to you!
As always, there is a wealth of information on the developer wiki at http://developer.symbian.org to help you through the signing process. To support the introduction of the new criteria, we've created a couple of new articles:
- Firstly, there's a short article giving Ten Top Tips on How to Pass Symbian Signed Testing First Time which you should read if you want to avoid falling into the common Symbian Signed failures.
- Secondly, we've created a more in-depth Guide To Symbian Signed Testing which provides detail on each test case, telling you exactly what the test house will be testing, and what you as a developer should do in order to pass the test.
If you've still got questions after all that, head over to our support forums where the Symbian Signed team and other members of the community will help you out.
Symbian Developer BootCamps
Symbian and Orange are teaming up to bring you the Symbian Developer BootCamp in Beijing.
Looking for an opportunity to become a Symbian developer but don’t know where to start? Want to understand how to reach a global audience? Then this workshop is for you. This is the ideal place to gain insight and hands-on experience with the Symbian platform and learn about our runtimes including Web Runtime, Adobe Flash Lite, and Qt as well as an introduction to native C++ development.
After the BootCamp you are invited to attend the Orange App Clinic between 17:00 and 19:00.
- Beijing, March 3, 2010: Register here
Recent Delivery Management Highlights
Build results for Symbian builds are now available to the public! After some months of work we finally have a solution to provide automatic publication of the build results to the developer website. This will allow the community to access logs and reports from the builds as soon as they are produced and this will in turn make the analysis of Symbian builds faster and more easily shared. Read more here…
Package of the month: Persistent Data Services
This month, we're throwing the spotlight on the Persistent Data Services package.
Persistent Data Services (PDS) is part of the OS layer, and provides frameworks for storing data. The package includes the following collections:
- The Persistent Storage collection, which provides structured data storage and data streams. It includes the Central Repository, DBMS, Symbian SQL and Store components.
- The Logging Services collection, which can be used to record events of interest to the end user, such as telephone calls and sent and received SMS messages.
- The Feature Management collection, which allows applications to modify their run time behaviour based on the hardware and software features of the device.
- The Trace Services collection, which is a device-side framework for the instrumentation of software components that can then be analysed using PC-side tools.
The package owner for PDS is Chris Dudding who maintains the package backlog on the Symbian developer website.
You can find out more about the activities ongoing in the Persistent Data Services package from the package wiki page, which includes links to further information about the key APIs provided by the collections, and also links to the forum and mailing list to use for asking questions about how to use or how to contribute to the package. Chris has also contributed his time to our upcoming book on Symbian SQL, and has recently started a blog.
Developer Interview
Maximillian Odendahl has been developing an extension to Calendar applications that allows you to connect directly to a calendar server such as Sun Calendar Server, Google Calendar, or any other server supporting the standard CalDAV protocol. Soon you will be able to access your remote calendar from your mobile phone while on the road. Read the interview!
New Package Owners
We would like to announce some new and changing package owners, some of them non-Nokia:
- Ixonos are taking over ownership of two important packages - Image Editor and Video Editor. For more information please see Effie Vraka's blog post.
- SASKEN is getting active and looking for input on an exciting new Social Mobile Framework for the Symbian platform. For more information please see James Aley's blog post or the package owner's blog.
- Accenture will be taking ownership of the QEMU and Syborg package.
- K3 made a major contribution proposal for a New Printing Framework that was positively received at the Feature and Roadmap council.
A Guide to One Click Connectivity
One Click Connectivity (OCC) is the next big step in advanced connectivity usability in Symbian^3 and follows the introduction of Application Level Roaming (ALR) in S60 3.2. The main benefits OCC brings are:
- Connectivity settings gathered in a centralised place
- New global settings to configure platform wide connectivity behaviour: cellular access in home/visitor network, automatic switch from cellular to WLAN
- Extended Connection Preferences API (Extendedconnpref API) that can be used to control the connection behaviour.
- New connection state related soft-notes
The objective of the OCC initiative is to create a consistent user experience for connectivity applications in Symbian devices: no unnecessary prompts and no unnecessary dialogs.
For more information please see the OCC guide - written to explain this new functionality in the context of how different applications should adapt and take advantage of this new middleware which the OCC initiative will introduce on a platform-wide basis from Symbian^3.
Bug Tracker Metrics update
There are now several new and updated queries in the Bug Tracker Metrics tool. These queries show trends in Symbian Foundation bugs, as recorded in the Bug Tracker database (not Web bugs).
There are two new entries in the Common Metrics tab: SF Defect Inflow and Outflow, and Open Defects (by major release version). You can add run-time filters to Common Metrics for a variety of factors, including a filter for package.
On the My Queries tab, there are now around 40 public queries you can load and run. Most of these fall into one of four groups: Open Defects, Inflow & Outflow, Median Age of Open and Median Age when Fixed. Queries prefixed with "SF" are based on definitions agreed by the Quality Working Group. There are also several provisional queries, without the "SF" prefix.
For more information please see the Bug Tracker Metrics Guidelines.
Fresh Ideas
Here are some of the latest and most popular entries from ideas.symbian.org:
- Web services framework - an idea that's currently being refined and implemented by Sasken. More information here.
- Recycle bin - causing some controversy: is 'recycle bin' an out-dated and ineffective paradigm?
- Find my phone when it's on silent - nice idea, but how?
- Let the community select a new free font for Symbian - could the community create a new, free font for Symbian?
- Clock radio - combine alarm and radio functionality to create a clock radio.
Documentation News
A new book about Symbian development comes out this month.
Inside Symbian SQL - A Mobile Developer’s Guide to SQLite by Ivan Litovski and Richard Maynard" is the definitive guide for Symbian C++ developers looking to use Symbian SQL in applications or system software.
Since Symbian SQL and SQLite are relatively new additions to the Symbian platform, Inside Symbian SQL begins with an introduction to database theory and concepts, including a Structured Query Language (SQL) tutorial.
Inside Symbian SQL also provides a detailed overview of the Symbian SQL APIs. From the outset, you will “get your hands dirty” writing Symbian SQL code. The book includes snippets and examples that application developers can immediately put to use to get started quickly.
For device creators and system software developers, Inside Symbian SQL offers a unique view into the internals of the implementation and a wealth of practical advice on how to make best and most efficient use of the Symbian SQL database. Several case studies are presented – these are success stories 'from the trenches', written by Symbian engineers.
Special Features:
- The book assumes no prior knowledge of databases
- Includes detailed and approachable explanations of database concepts
- Easy to follow SQL tutorial with SQLite examples
- Unique view into the Symbian SQL internals
- Troubleshooting section with solutions to common problems
Written by the Symbian engineers who implemented SQLite on Symbian, with more than 40 years combined Symbian C++ experience, this book is for anyone interested in finding out more about using a database on Symbian. It is published on 26th February and available in stores and online from retailers such as Amazon.
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