Mark Wilcox's Forum Nokia Blog

Multi-language Programming, Python, Flash Lite, C++, Java, Widgets

Sorcery-ltd — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:03:33 +0200

I've been working with some other Forum Nokia Champions and expert developers in the last few months to create some resources for Multi-language programming (mixing your favourite runtimes). The result is a series of papers for the Symbian Developer Network.

In them you can find out about:

1) The architecture for applications mixing languages

2) The strengths and weaknesses of various combinations of languages

3) How to combine Flash Lite with C++ or Java (with examples from KuneriLite and Jarpa)

4) How to combine Python with Flash Lite or C++ (with examples from Flyer and a tutorial on writing PyS60 extensions)

5) How to extend WRT widgets

One of the suggestions I made on my blog here before and also in the papers has already been done. One of the authors of the paper covering Python, Jussi Toivola (aka GameDude) has ported pygame to PyS60 Community Edition. Now you can write games with sound effects in Python, taking advantage of the native performance provided by the SDL.

Please read and enjoy! Many thanks are due to Bernd Wiegmann, Felipe Andrade, Ugur Kaner, Jukka Hamalainen, Mikko Ohtamaa & Jussi Toivola, as well as the wonderful folks at the SDN.

Mark

Code Camps - a great way to learn a new environment

Sorcery-ltd — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 23:46:17 +0300

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

New Stuff for Symbian C++ Developers

Sorcery-ltd — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 12:05:01 +0300

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