I was in Berlin last week at MDD08.  Some of it was good, some not so.  However, one bit that I really enjoyed was the chance to learn some more about Flash Lite and write my first Flash Lite application with some experts on hand to smooth the learning curve.

I got this chance at the Forum Nokia code camp.  Here's FN's own Riku Salminen evangelising about Flash Lite.

So, having never written anything in Flash before, and not having hacked a bit of JavaScript (which is very like the ActionScript language used in Flash Lite) for many years, I opened up Adobe Creative Suite 3 and set to work.

I had some good advice from fellow FNC Chall3ng3r (aka Faisal Iqbal) and he helped me fix my first bug - so thanks for that.  He's recently released a new version of his tool for Flash Lite developers - SWF2Go.

In one afternoon I created a simple breakout clone where the blocks advance down the screen every 5 seconds.  It isn't finished - it doesn't actually keep track of the score yet or tell you when you run out of lives and give you the chance to start again for instance - but it's fairly playable already.  Of course the graphics are very basic but that's not the point - they can easily be replaced later.  I'd never be able to acheive that much with native Symbian C++ coding in an afternoon, particularly if I'd never written anything before.  I don't think it would have been possible if I hadn't been at the code camp with some experts on hand to help either.

Simple_game.swf

Simple_game.fla - use "save target as" on these links if you want to mess with my simple creation, the keys aren't enabled if you play the above link in the desktop Flash Player in your browser.

That said, ActionScript debugging is a nightmare - the run-time doesn't produce any errors, it just carries on as best it can if there's a problem.  I found what seems like an obscure bug with where you can and can't access movie clips from using the global this[] array syntax but it took about an hour out of my afternoon tracking it down (Riku & Faisal couldn't even help with that one!) otherwise I might have finished.  I don't think I'm a converted Flash Lite enthusiast after this experience but I'll definitely be having another look at it.

If there's a code camp near you, give it a try!  You never know what you might create.

Mark

Ever wanted to add modules to the core PyS60 distribution rather than having to find them from all over the place?

Ever wanted to build a single executable for your Python application that didn't need the interpreter installed separately or as an embedded SIS file AND have no clashes with other interpreter versions or problems with uninstallation and dependencies?

Ever wanted to try out a new build system for Symbian OS, where the build scripts are written in Python (SCons for Symbian anyone)?

If you had these things what would you do with them?  You could:

• Write commercial PyS60 applications!
• Port/Intergrate new modules more easily.
• Fix bugs in PyS60 core or modules that affect your apps rather than work around them.
• Much, much more...

Thankfully the fantastic folks at Red Innovation have brought us Python for Series 60 Community Edition that provides all of this.  I can take no credit here, I've only tested that the build system works.  At the moment it's still really only for enthusiasts and early adopters as the installation and setup is a bit complex to start working on it, but there are plans to simplify things in the future.

The project is hosted at Launchpad so that's the place to go with your questions and bug reports.

Personally, I'd love to see what people could do if we add Pygame support, since the main dependency, SDL, is already ported to S60.  Unfortunately I have no idea when I'll have time to work on this.  If anyone else wants to get started I'll be happy to support/mentor them if they need it though - just comment this blog or drop me an email via the discussion boards.  I've already added a "blueprint" for this to Launchpad, but there's no detail yet.

Perhaps one day Nokia will be able to take patches and extensions from the community release back to the official release...

Anyway, enjoy this great new resource.

Mark

I thought I'd write a quick post to highlight some of the things I've been up to lately. 

First, there's Multimedia on Symbian OS: Inside the Convergence Device, which I co-authored for Symbian Press.  It should be available next month.  Lots of great stuff for multimedia developers, or those wanting to add multimedia to their applications.  It also does a really good job (well I would say that wouldn't I) of explaining the multimedia architecture, so you can understand how it all works underneath.

Then there's a pair of paper's I've written for the Symbian Developer Network.  One explains how to port software from Linux to Symbian OS and the other explains how I ported an open source guitar tuner application (with example code).

I may well be talking about this and other porting work I've been doing at the Mobile Developer Days in Berlin next week.  There will be lots of interesting things to learn about there, including plenty of presentations and tutorials from Trolltech about Qt on mobile devices.  Forum Nokia are hosting tutorials on Flash Lite and Web Runtime.  You can also learn about Python, sensors and much, much more.  Don't miss it!

Mark