Categories: Symbian C++ | Porting | Code Examples

From Forum Nokia Wiki

List of problems

• Bringing the console application to the foreground

The console application has the icon displayed on the main screen, while it is switch to the foreground without any problems on S60, on UIQ3 is each time started new process, so when I

 GLDEF_C TInt E32Main()
 {
   RMutex mutex;
     if ( mutex.OpenGlobal( KConsoleTestMutex ) == KErrNone )
   {
     CTrapCleanup* cleanup = CTrapCleanup::New();
     TRAPD( err, BringMeToForegroundL() );
     delete cleanup;	
     mutex.Close();
     return error;
   }
   else
   {
     mutex.CreateGlobal( KConsoleTestMutex );
   }
   ...
 }
 void BringMeToForegroundL()
 {
   TInt err = KErrNone;
   RWsSession ws;
   err = ws.Connect();
   if ( err != KErrNone )
   {
     User::LeaveIfError( err );
   }
   TApaTaskList taskList( ws );
   TApaTask task = taskList.FindApp( KConsoleAppName );
   if ( task.Exists() )
   {
     task.BringToForeground();
     err = KErrNone;
   }
   else
   {
     err = KErrAlreadyExists;
   }
   ws.Close();
   User::LeaveIfError( err );
 }	

Start console - notice the name KConsoleAppName:

 ...
 CConsoleBase* console = Console::NewL( KConsoleAppName, 
   TSize(KConsFullScreen,KConsFullScreen));

• Winsock IAP is missing in CommDb and wrong RConnection capability

To establish the connection from the emulator could be sometimes little tricky. I usually use RConnection class to establish the connection and the Winsock IAP on the S60 emulator. Unfortunately it does not exist on in the commDb on the UIQ emulator. The uiqenv –eth tool must be executed to create the new APN for LAN bearer in the database first. Details how this tool has to be used could be found here: http://developer.uiq.com/downloads/public/EnvConfig.pdf. In my case everything worked fine on the first attempt. The newly created profile name is Emulator Ethernet.

Another surprising thing was that the RConnection::Start() method needs the NetworkServices capability on UIQ3, while on S60 it runs without it.

• Limited SVG support

The UIQ3 platform surprisingly does not support SVG (UIQ3.1 already supports it), so all bitmaps have to be exported into bmp and consequently transformed into compound mbm file. There is possibility how to detect the SVG support on runtime mentioned here (the snippet just checks if the file UIQSvgSupport.sis is located in the directory z:\ system\install\): http://developer.uiq.com/devlib/uiq_31/SDKDocumentation/doc_source/guide/uiqhowtos/UIQVarious/UIQ_SVG/Detect_SVG_supported.guide.html#Detect_SVG_supported%2eguide

The disadvantage of missing SVG support will touch every ported S60 application at least once – when the application icon will be defined. The application icon on UIQ must be provided in three different sizes (64x64, 40x40 and 18x18), so when the RESOURCE LOCALISABLE_APP_INFO is defined, instead of putting into icon_file just the mif file name with the svg as on S60 platform, there should be the mbm with 3 icons provided with different sizes

 RESOURCE LOCALISABLE_APP_INFO
 {
   short_caption = "My application";
   caption_and_icon =
   {
     CAPTION_AND_ICON_INFO 
     {
       caption=" My application ";
       number_of_icons=3;
       icon_file= "\\resource\\apps\\MyAppIcons.mbm";
     }
   };
 }

The best way to define the sources for mbm is the mmp file (or mk file for gnumake):

 START BITMAP	MyAppIcons.mbm
 HEADER
 TARGETPATH      Resource\Apps
 SOURCEPATH      ..\gfx
 SOURCE	c24	Icon_Small.bmp
 SOURCE	1	Icon _Small_mask.bmp
 SOURCE	c24      Icon _Large.bmp
 SOURCE	1	Icon _Large_mask.bmp
 SOURCE	c24	Icon _xLarge.bmp
 SOURCE	1	Icon _xLarge_mask.bmp
 END

• Transparent window

UIQ3 supports displaying transparent windows, while the method RWindow::SetTransparencyFactor() is not supported on S60 3rd (I have tested couple MR devices and N95, which is FP1 device) .

• Choosing between different builds

There is quite a lot differences between S60 and UIQ applications and sometimes it could be useful to have different project files for both platforms. Unfortunately there is missing some defined mechanism, how to differentiate between different SDKs during build time (i.e. there are not some macros, which can be easily used in build time). I found useful (especially for build scripts) to differentiate on the bld.inf level the MMP file to be used:

 PRJ_MMPFILES
 #if defined(UIQ_UMTS_AVAILABLE) && defined(EKA2)
   // UIQ3
   Application_uiq3.mmp	
 #else
   Application_S60.mmp
 #endif