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

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The mobile world moves quickly, and the tutorial soon got outdated.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!

SpyPhone / BabyPhone is a Python-application that monitors the surrounding sound level.

At the core of every mobile phone, there’s still the voice channel. Therefore, every phone is equipped with a microphone that’s optimized at recording the human voice. Add the aspect that the phone is mobile and that the owner usually carries it with him all the time, it’s no surprising thought that the phone can be used as a remote surveillance tool.

BiBUnit is based on a rather simple concept and essentially accepts incoming video calls if a previously set number is calling, allowing you to monitor the surroundings through the phone camera. SpyManager on the other hand lets you take remote snapshots of through phone, also through a PC server application.

Similar, but with a different usage scenario is Phone Guardian, which allows remotely controlling aspects of the device in case it was stolen from you. SecureMe is built based on the same concept.

SkyeSpy turns the situation around and alerts the observer autonomously. The application on the "spy"-phone is able to monitor the audio level of the surroundings. If it exceeds a threshold, the phone will contact a previously paired phone per SMS or a call.

There might be other applications around that I missed, but the list should give you an overview of what is currently possible on a S60 phone.

SpyPhone / BabyPhone

Now the students Clemens Rainer and Daniel Haslinger went up to the task of implementing this application via PyS60 and have released their results for free as an open source application called SpyPhone or BabyPhone.

Like the SkyeSpy-application, the phone constantly monitors the audio level of the surroundings. If a pre-defined threshold is exceeded, the phone automatically calls the number of a pre-defined "agent".

A good use-case would be the monitoring of a baby. When it starts to cry, the phone will automatically call the number of the parents. As the call is a normal voice connection, they can hear what’s actually happening. If it sounds serious, it’s about time they pay a visit to the child.

Technically, the application is constantly working on two tasks. The first records the sound into a file on the device. In the meantime, the other task analyzes the previous sound file. The next step would be to add more sophisticated sound processing to the application. Instead of just calculating the volume like SkyeSpy does it as well, it would be possible to measure the frequencies in the recorded sounds and only react if these are in the range of the human voice.

As the SpyPhone / BabyPhone application is available as open source, it provides an ideal starting place for your own audio experiments in Python for S60.

whatisinmysis.com analyzes the contents of your.sis files.

But what if you don't want to install an application just to take a look at the contents of the .sis-file? Or what if you are working on a friend's PC that doesn't have the same, perfect setup as your own? Stefan Damm got into this situation from time to time, and then decided to make an online tool available.

The website whatisinmysis.com is an online interface to the sisinfo Python-script. You simply upload the .sis-file to the website, and it will display all the information about its contents. Easy, fast and free. No setup on your PC is required. The privacy statement on the site ensures that your uploaded files are deleted immediately after analysis.

whatisinmysis.com will display the following:

• Contents of .sis file and installation directory of each entry
• Capabilities of each executable (exe, dll, .pyd)
• Certificate chain

If you find online services like the new one from Stefan Damm interesting, you might also want to bookmark WhyTheFuckWontMySisFileInstall.com. It has got a slightly different focus: it provides information about the signing status and prints reasons or suggestions why installation of this .sis-file might fail on a device.

Of course, whatisinmysis.com has now also been added to symbianresources.com.