Lucian Tomuta's Forum Nokia Blog

Load your application in a running emulator

ltomuta — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:00:49 +0200

Everybody loves to hate the Symbian SDK emulator. The first reaction to it usually is: "It is slow, really slooooooow, it takes ages to start it" ;)

Yes, it is true, the emulator is slow, but considering the task it has to perform and the complexity of the system it emulates such slowness is to be expected. However, the problem is not as bad as one may think. Yes, the emulator takes time to load, but then why don't you start it in advance and let it load while you browse your recent emails, so that you have it up-and-running at the moment you really need it.

Many developers already with some Symbian experience will tell you that you cannot do that. But yes, you can! The following video will show a basic Qt application being created, built and run into an already running emulator.

Coming up next: Rebuild without restarting the emulator.

Build without an SDK, test without a device

ltomuta — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:50:08 +0200

How many SDKs do I need? Which SDK is best for me?

For a newcomer to the Symbian development world those are among the first questions asked. There are many S60 SDKs on offer, some with feature packs and plugins, some with compiler specific binaries and on top of that many plug-ins. Quite a lot to handle and figure out and nobody likes having all possible SDKs installed.

So what will happen now that Qt is added to the picture? I can design my app using Qt for Windows (or Linux, or Mac) and, according to the "code once, compile anywhere" promise I should be able now to compile this application for Symbian and Maemo devices, with minimal changes. But that means that now I need to install at least one Symbian SDK for building, or a Maemo one, and I should have at least one smartphone for testing. Or do I?

Yes, probably one will have an SDK installed and use its emulator for testing some really complicated solutions, with Symbian components part of the design. And yes, nothing can really replace hand-on-testing. But for simple use cases and for getting started trials one possible solution could be building and testing in the cloud. What you need is an IDE plugin, web hosted SDK and build tools and Forum Nokia's Remote Device Access solution, all mixed together in a rather simple build, deploy and test solution.

Here's a live demo (boring parts speeded-up a bit) of such a solution:

So, what do you think? Do you like the idea? Would you use it for your projects?

S60 development on Windows 7

ltomuta — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 11:00:40 +0200

One of the first comments to my S60 SDK and tools on Windows Vista - a success story article was that we should hurry up with making the tools compatible with Vista because what do you know, Windows 7 is around the corner and we will be again trailing behind ... :)

Well, Windows 7 (beta, Ultimate edition) is now available for download and is surprisingly stable. On a modest IBM Thinkpad T41 the OS installs ok and although it has some bells and whistles disabled (or because of that, after all Aero is cute but resource hungry) I find it to be fast and fresh ...

So, how do Carbide (now version 2.0) and the S60 SDK (now the S60 5th Edition SDK v0.9) behave on this Windows release?

As with Vista, the key is to be careful and as much as possible in control of what you're doing. There seems to be only two rules to follow: install the tools with admin rights and verify the result after each step.

I've followed roughly the same steps and compared with the previous results the following are to be noted:

The only ActivePerl package I've found for download was in *.msi format. This is basically a document to be handled by the Windows Installer and does not have a "Run as Administrator" option.
Holding the Shift key down while accessing the context menu one can find a "Run as other user..." option but in an attempt to use that I found out that the Administrator account was by default disabled.
I ended up enabling this account, setting a password for it and then running the Windows Installer from the command line (just to be sure):

> runas /noprofile /user:administrator "msiexec /i c:\users\lucian\desktop\ActivePerl-5.6.1.635-MSWin32-x86.msi"
Aside from this small complication all went ok and at the end I could verify that Perl was correctly added to the path and can be invoked (tools verification as described in How do I start programming for Symbian OS?).
As in the previous post, I've chose to install the GCC compiler myself rather than let the SDK setup to start it. However, despite running it with administrator privileges the installer was not able to modify the %PATH% environment variable so I had to edit it manually and set it as %PATH%=c:\Program Files\CSL Arm Toolchain\bin;%PATH%
The emulator is running OK with no hacks applied (like DEP deactivation), just the usual firewall blockage removal

That's it. Unofficially and with a "only for hackers" recommendation I declare the S60 development tools Windows 7 ready. :)

Btw, as in the previous tests, I found that I don't need the official Vista patch provided with the SDK or any of the many hacks documented in the Migrating to Windows Vista wiki article. Or at least I did not need them ... yet.

How about a new version of the GCC compiler?

ltomuta — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 21:30:54 +0200

Last time I've asked my colleagues from Symbian about updating the compiler used in the Symbian/S60 SDKs the answer was something like ... it's on the list, we're looking into it. I don't know what the status is now but it seems we no longer need to wait for an official release (ok, it depends on how much we're ready to risk "hacking" the SDK).

Forum Nokia user MKechlibar just announced that he has managed to tame the beasts and, judging by the nicely documented Wiki article he wrote, everybody should be able to follow his lead.

Have a look at the article, its title is How to use GCCE 4 with Symbian SDKs, and why not, give it a try!

A few reminders

ltomuta — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:08:20 +0300

I want to remind you a couple of things about the S60 5th Edition SDK:

The current version is 0.9 and that shoud indicate that it is a beta SDK. We are still descovering problems with it and trying to fix them when possible even before the next SDK release. To save youself from some troubles you should remember to check periodicaly the content of the Wiki article KIS001048 - S60 Platform SDK - Workarounds and Updates or better yet you should register for page update notifications (click on the Watch tab).
Presumably the SDK does not contain all the APIs one needs for implementing some "must have" application features. That is why we are constantly asked when the next SDK API Plug-in will be released. At the same time, a request for feedback on which APIs should be included in the package is completely ignored.
Am I correct to read this as a sign that those APIs are not really needed?

The S60 SDK emulator: faster if you do not start it

ltomuta — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:00:41 +0300

Just now I've run across a thread in the Forum Nokia's Discussion Boards promising an 1000% improvement of emulator's startup time.

Two things came to my mind seeing this thread: a paradox attributed to Zeno of Elea and ... the S60 3rd Edition SDK, supporting Feature Pack 2.

First, Zeno's paradox, adapted so that it fits the topic:

In order to satisfy the developers, the emulator would have to be fully up and running in about 10s. But, in order to do so, it would have to be in a "half way there" state first, which it cannot do unless it reaches half of that state to begin with. And so on, ... and so on, ad infinitum.

I have seen at least two conclusions of this paradox, pick your choice:

The "logical" conclusion is that the emulator cannot actually ever start since it will have to pass through an infinite number of intermediary states in a finite time interval.
The "logical" conclusion is that in order for the emulator to achieve the desired performance it is mandatory that the emulator is not even started.

Ok? No more complaints about the emulator please!

Now the serious part:

The S60 3rd Edition SDK FP2 does implement two start modes for the emulator, a partial one, with only a few critical servers started, and the full slow start-up mode with which we are all accustomed by now.

You can switch between the two start-up modes by modifying a setting in emulator's Preferences dialog (through the Tools -> Preferences menu option).

The SDK release v1.1 also adds a graphical indicator to the emulator's window so that the developer knows all the time whether the emulator runs in partial or full startup mode. This is intended as a reminder likely to be useful should you experience some strange application error, which can be a side effect of the chosen startup mode.

For tweaking the emulator of the previous platform releases we are each on our own, but it should be quite safe to try ...