Preface

This book is for anyone who is considering or is currently involved in creating software for Series 60 using C++. For software engineers , designers and project managers, it is an in-depth practical guide to Series 60 development. Engineers from a wide range of organizations ”independent software vendors , licensees , competence centers, network operators, content providers and so on ”should benefit from this work. This book provides an in-depth practical guide to Series 60 software development in C++. We do not attempt to teach C++ or object-oriented design; these are essential prerequisites to getting the best from this book.

We assume at the outset that you have located and installed a suitable Series 60 SDK and a chosen development environment from Borland, Metrowerks or Microsoft. Help on acquiring these necessary materials is provided in the References section at the back of the book.

Generous amounts of documentation, information and example projects are included with the SDKs and tools, so where possible we have avoided duplicating this material. From time to time we refer to sections of the standard documentation and examples where you can find more details. Many other sources of information are available to assist engineers to acquire entry-level Symbian OS development skills, and links to such resources are provided in the References section.

Some basics of Symbian development are provided here to aid the complete beginner, but to avoid too much duplication we focus mainly on the specifics of Series 60 Platform development.

Around sixty separate buildable projects are provided, together with full source code and installation scripts. See the References section for instructions on correct installation of the project materials. Links to the projects materials, updates and errata are available online from:

• http://www.emccsoft.com/devzone/

• http://www.forum.nokia.com/books/

• http://www.awprofessional.com/nokia/

Series 60 is a complete smartphone reference design, including a host of wireless applications, based on Symbian OS. It represents a rich open environment for developers to create their own innovative applications. However, it is a rapidly developing platform, and so this book covers development for versions 1.x and 2.x of Series 60 Platform.

Application developers can choose from Java ^TM MIDP or C++ as their development language. This book covers only C++, since it currently offers significantly greater capability in terms of performance and access to a huge set of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces).