Table of Contents

Foreword.
About this book.


Innovation Through Openness.


About the Authors.


Acknowledgements.


1. Symbian OS Fundamentals.


1.1 Object Creation and Destruction.


1.2 Error Handling and Cleanup.


1.3 Naming Conventions.


1.4 Descriptors.


1.5 Active Objects.


1.6 Summary.


2. Symbian OS User Interfaces.


2.1 Introduction.


2.2 The Common Framework.


2.3 The Screen Layout.


2.4 Common UI Components.


2.5 UI-specific Components.


2.6 Skins.


2.7 Handling User Input.


2.8 Summary.


3. A Running Application.


3.1 Introduction.


3.2 System Calls.


3.3 Summary.


4. Using Controls and Dialogs.


4.1 What is a Control?


4.2 Simple Controls.


4.3 Compound Controls.


4.4 Control Layout.


4.5 Handling Key and Pointer Events.


4.6 Observing a Control.


4.7 Drawing a Control.


4.8 Dialogs.


4.9 More Complex Dialogs.


4.10 Interface Class Usage in Dialogs.


4.11 Custom Controls in Dialogs.


4.12 Summary.


5. Views and the View Architecture.


5.1 Controlling Your Application with Views.


5.2 View Architecture Components.


5.3 Implementing Views.


5.4 Creating Views.


5.5 Registering Views.


5.6 Switching Between Views.


5.7 Deregistering Views.


5.8 More on Views.


5.9 View Specific Behavior on UIQ and Series 60 Platforms.


5.10 Conclusion.


5.11 Summary.


6. Files and the Filing System.


6.1 Filing System Services.


6.2 Streams.


6.3 Stores.


6.4 Using INI Files.


6.5 Resource Files and Bitmaps.


7. Multimedia Services.


7.1 The Multimedia Component Architecture.


7.2 The Multimedia Framework (MMF).


7.3 Using the MMF.


7.4 Using Audio.


7.5 Using Video.


7.6 Controller Framework API.


7.7 Using the ICL.


7.8 Using Ecam.


8. Comms and Messaging.


7.1 Introduction.


8.2 Overview of Symbian OS Comms Architecture.


8.3 Protocol Support.


8.4 MMS.


8.5 Summary.


9. Testing on Symbian OS.


9.1 Code Coverage Analysis.


9.2 Binary Compatibility Tool.


9.3 Test Driver.


9.4 Analyzing the Results.


9.5 Sampling Profiler.


9.6 Countloc ? Measuring Source Code Size.


9.7 Summary.


Appendix 1. Example Projects.


Appendix 2. Symbian OS System Model.


Appendix 3. Writing Good Symbian OS Code.


Appendix 4. Developer Resources.


Appendix 5. Build Process Overview.


Appendix 6. Specifications of Symbian OS Phones.


Index.

About the Author

Richard Harrison, Lead Author- Richard joined Symbian (then
known as Psion) in 1983 after several years teaching maths, physics
and computer science. During that time he wrote a Forth language
implementation for Acorn Computers, and wrote accompanying user
manuals for the Acorn Atom and BBC Micro.
He has spent the majority of his time in system integration
(SI), building and leading the SI team. He has produced user
documentation for software for the Sinclair QL, the PC application
software for the Psion Organiser I and the source code translator
for the original version of OPL. Joint author of the Organiser II
spreadsheet and principal designer and author of the Psion Series 3
and 3a word processors, he was also lead author of the Psion SIBO
SDK team.


Educated at Balliol College, Oxford, with an MA in Natural
Science (Physics), Richard also graduated from Sussex University
with an MSc in Astronomy, and spent a further two years of
postgraduate research in the Astronomy Group at Imperial
College.


Alan Robinson- Alan Robinson joined Symbian shortly after
its formation in 1998 and has mostly worked on documentation and
examples in messaging and communications. Alan previously
contributed to Wireless Java for Symbian Devices 9Wiley 2001) and
Symbian OS C++ for Mobile Phones Vol. 1 (Wiley 2003).


A graduate of Cambridge University with a BA in literature and
philosophy, he became interested in applying logical theory and
took a Computing MSc at Middlesex University. he has worked on
developer kits for a startup company's messaging middleware
platform, and for IBM's MQ Series.


Arwel Hughes- Arwel joined Symbian (then Psion) in 1993,
working on documentation for the Series 3a and also some software
development. Since the formation of Symbian, he has contributed
documentation and examples for  Symbian OS. This is rather
like painting the famous Forth Bridge: just when you think you can
see the end...


Arwel previously worked on IBM mainframes in roles including
programmer and systems programmer for a number of companies
including GKN, Prudential Assurance, Shell and Chase Manhattan
Bank. He has a BSC in Applied Mathematics from Sheffield
University.


Dominic Pinkman- Dominic joined Psion in October 1995 as
a technical author. he has written and maintained documentation for
APIS throughout Symbian OS and was a co-author of the book Symbian
OS C++ for Mobile Phones Vol. 1 (Wiley, 2003).


He has an MSc in Computer Science from the University of Kent
and a BA in Modern Language studies from Leicester University.


Elisabeth Måwe- Elisabeth joined the system
documentation team in 2000 and has since been designing and writing
the Symbian Developer Library, specializing in operating system
customization, kits, emulators, test, build and release tools. She
has also been involved in training and usability management.


Elisabeth has a BA in Technical Communication/Information Design
from Mälardalens Högskola and Coventry University, as
well as an MA in Contemporary English Language and Linguistics from
Reading University. After graduating in 1996 she worked as a
technical author, information designer and web editor for various
IT companies in the UK, producing documentation for both network
management and market research software. She would like to thank
Alex Peckover and Murray Read for providing both example code and
technical expertise.


Greg Zaoui- Gregory Zaoui first joined Symbian in 1998,
as a graduate software engineer with a 'licence de
Mathématiques' from the University of Strasbourg. He has been
working on various projects for System Integration on build tools
and release management. He then joined the newly created Test
Solutions group in 2002, as a technical architect for TechView and
other test tools.


His interests range from skiing and windsurfing to talmudic
studies. Gregory would like to thank Richard Harrison and Paul
Treacy for their excellent mentoring, as well as Clare Oakley (Test
Solutions manager) without whom it would be impossible to talk
consistently about test tools for symbian OS. he also would like to
acknowledge Elisabeth Måwe for her very active participation
to the chapter, Konstantin Michaelov for his  very useful
example cases, Andrew Thoelke for the profiler bits, and all Test
Solutions developers for their contribution. Gregory would also
like to add special thanks to his dear wife Tamar for her constant
encouragement and most precious help.


Nick Johnson- Since joining Symbian, Nick worked for a
year in the Multimedia team helping implement next-generation
Multimedia APIs and frameworks on Symbian OS and then subsequently
transferred to Symbian's Marketing department, where he is now
working as a developer consultant assisting Symbian partners with
their Multimedia troubles.


Previous to this, Nick first spent three years studying Computer
Science and Cybernetics at Reading University before subsequently
spending two years working in 3D sound research at Sensaura Ltd.
Here he spent time both developing new 3D sound algorithms and
implementing the Xbox and GameCube ports of their cross-platform 3D
audio middleware library. After leaving Sensaura, Nick spent a few
weeks in the games industry working on 'Microsoft Train Simulator
2' before deciding that it just wasn't for him and instead joined
Symbian.


Outside work, Nick enjoys learning Japanese and about Japanese
culture, is a home cinema/film enthusiast, enjoys
collecting/drinking rare liquors and vodkas and spends large
amounts of time trying to convince friends that Laser Discs are
still the way forward...


Richard Potter- Richard joined Symbian in the summer of
2002 as a technical author. He works on documentation for the
Security and Networking subsystems and has also written some Perl
and Python scripts to aid the team.


Richard's unusual route to becoming a technical author includes
advertising photography, being a singer/guitarist in a rock band,
an MSc in Astrophysics, and an MPhil in Experimental Particle
Physics working at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Palo
Alto, California. Many thanks to Jelte Liebrand for his advice.

Reviews

"Only book around that explains the intricacies of Symbian OS C++" - Developer