Paul Todd's Forum Nokia Blog

Carbide 2.3 and QT tip

2009-11-19T02:04:38+02:00

I have recently started investigating using QT since its the new Nokia hot topic!

After installing carbide.c++ 2.3 beta I imported a QT project I had written for the desktop and got this error when opening anything to do with QT

"org.eclipse.swt.SWTException: Class ID not found in registry"

The trick to getting rid of this error message is to register the QT DLL's. Look in the folder "configuration\qt" under your carbide installation root folder and there you will find a bat file called "register_plugins.bat" which you will need to run.

This registers all the COM objects eclipse needs and the integrated tools will now work...

Using CAknUnitEditor

2009-09-25T19:45:04+03:00

One of the more useful features of Avkon 3.2 and later (though like the coordinate editor, is very poorly documented) is the unit editor control, aka CAknUnitEditor. This control allows formats such as <number> <unit> to be easily entered and in conformance with the current locale.Below is an example of the editor in action. It is also very touch friendly

The control is composed of a resource structure "AVKON_UNIT_EDITOR" defined in eikon.rh and the C++ class is CAknUnitEditor which implementes the actual class that can be used in a form.

The editor consists of a number, a fraction, a range and default value and a set of units from meter, kilometer, foot, mile, metric and imperial speed. In addition a custom unit may also be specified through the C++ class when it is constructed.

Of course all this can be found in the supplied example in the UEEX sample or for it being used in the real world, look at the position accuracy and altitude fields when editing a location in the location database.

Showing the virtual keypad automatically in Queries

2009-09-10T16:38:47+03:00

As can be seen when a touch device boots after a hard reset or for the first time and the prompt for date and time is done, the input panel is raised and the user does not need o go through touching the control input field to activate the virtual keyboard.

This cuts out an additional keypress for the user and makes it clear that on a touch device the user should click the virtual buttons!

This same affect can be achieved in 5th edition devices by using he EEikDialogFlagVirtualInput in the flags field of a query resource (ie the DIALOG resource control definition)

This format is particularly useful when a single field needs to be ntered in.

Below is the dialog resource which is compatible with both 3rd and 5th edition devices

RESOURCE DIALOG r_text_query
    {
    flags = EGeneralQueryFlags | 0x8000/*| EEikDialogFlagVirtualInput*/;
    buttons = R_AVKON_SOFTKEYS_OK_CANCEL;

    items =
        {
        DLG_LINE
            {
            type = EAknCtQuery;
            id = EGeneralQuery;
            control = AVKON_DATA_QUERY
                {
                layout = EDataLayout;
                control = EDWIN
                    {
                    flags = EEikEdwinResizable;
                    width = 5;
                    maxlength = 256;
                    max_view_height_in_lines = 5;
                    base_line_delta = 21;
                    };
                };
            }
        };
    }

The effect is illustrated below
On all devices without the EEikDialogFlagVirtualInput set

and after

For extra credit its possible to replace the EEikDialogFlagVirtualInput efine with its hex value (0x8000) and in so doing the same code base can be utilized in both the 3rd and 5th edition devices, just on touch enabled devices the keypad will show automatically.

OVI API beta site up

2009-09-03T11:26:08+03:00

The new OVI API's have been announced!

http://www.forum.nokia.com/Ovi/ !

Currently only maps is avaliable.

Why can I not use custom soft keys in global notes?

2009-08-10T12:37:23+03:00

This question often pops up on the boards and has to do with the way global notes are implemented.A global note is implemented as a notifier and as such the server for the notifier exists in a seperate process so resource files that are loaded in the client side of the notifier will not get transferred to the notifier server process and so only avkon resources (in avkon.rsc/avkon.rsg) are guaranteed to be supported in the server process* and hence the only CBA buttons that can be used are those in avkon.

Of course it is entirely possible to add a new cba structure to the data that is marshalled between the client structure and the server but this is not currently implemented and probably will never be due to issues around localization and the fact the global notes should strongly be discouraged as they block access to the device until the note is dismissed.

(*this is sort of correct, its implemented slightly differently underneath)

CAknLocationEditor

2009-08-09T17:43:37+03:00

From FP2 there is support for a native MFNE to allow the entry of coordinates. This editor is called the CAknLocationEditor control and can be found in AknLocationEd.h. Since coordinates are always represented as a latitude and longitude it makes sense to use this control in a multiline edit control to enter both the latitude and longitude.

More details on this can be found on the wiki page I created and this includes example code showing how to use it.

Wiki page link

Google web search traffic

2009-04-02T15:55:04+03:00

Enough toaster jokes already, its April the second.....

Techchrunch have posted an interesting analysis of traffic coming to websearch.

http://www.techcrunchit.com/2009/03/29/follow-the-mobile-user/

Ok, so there are some questions around the Andoid vs S60 search views but it definately looks like S60 needs "comes with data plan" to make any kind of headway.

Still it does look like S60 is still pulling down quite a lot of traffic against some of its competitors

DevcertList update

2009-01-06T13:54:13+02:00

DevcertList has been updated to version 1.2

I have seen a number of people getting "Constrained by certificate" errors and say they are absolutly sure they transcribed the IMEI correctly. To fix this I have updated DevCertList to check for IMEI's that are invalid and also IMEI's that have the wrong length.

The 3GPP specification outlines the checksum digit calculation to make sure the IMEI is valid.

This was a result of this thread over at the Symbian board..

http://developer.symbian.com/forum/thread.jspa?messageID=84670&tstart=0

Get it here:

http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.php/Listing_IMEIs_and_Capabilities_in_a_DevCert

Mobbler update

2009-01-05T12:08:41+02:00

Michael Coffey has just updated Mobbler with lots of useful example code that are missing from the S60 examples

Download manager example
Incoming call watcher
Marquee/ticker control
Setting list item withAccess points

Get it here

http://code.google.com/p/mobbler/

Looks like I was wrong

2008-12-31T18:01:10+02:00

It appears there might be a need for antivirus software on S60 phones after all.

The F-Secure blog is reporting a unique problem where getting a specially formed SMS will turn your nice shiny smartphone into a less functional brick.

Hopefully a ROM update will be availiable soon, but the blog details what to look for if it happens...

More info here

http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001569.html

and a youtube video here

http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001571.html

Yet another reason why we need the hard reboot functionality that was supposedly removed from the 5.0 devices.