Categories: Symbian C++ | Tools | IDE | SDK

From Forum Nokia Wiki

Ever since Nokia released the first 3rd Edition SDK, a lot of the "old-timers" asked again and again the same question: can I use Visual Studio 6.0 with the new SDK? And the answer was always no.

Well it seems that there is actually a way of using Visual Studio 6.0 (without any type of add-ons like Carbide.vs or something like that) to develop and debug applications for the 3rd Edition SDKs.

I have only tried this method with Nokia's 3rd Edition Maintenance Release SDK but I have no reason to believe that it won't work with all the others (including the UIQ SDKs).

Besides the SDK and Visual Studio 6.0, you will also need the Nokia x86 compiler (same used by Code Warrior). This is due to the fact that the 3rd Edition SDKs come only in the WINSCW variant and thus the Microsoft compiler cannot be used.

The Nokia x86 compiler can be found, strangely enough, in the UIQ 3.X SDK. Maybe you can find it also in some other places, but for me the easiest method was to download and install the UIQ SDK. So head over to developer.uiq.com, download and install it (you will need a username and a password but registration is free). During setup, you will notice that one of the items that is going to be installed is called "x86 VS2003". This is the Nokia x86 compiler.

After the installation, you will find a folder called nokia_compiler in C:\Symbian\UIQ3.1SDK\epoc32\tools\. Copy it to C:\Symbian\9.1\S60_3rd_MR\Epoc32\tools.

You can also find the installation kit for the Nokia x86 compiler here: C:\Symbian\UIQ3.1SDK\epoc32\tools\distrib\nokia_x86_compiler_3_2_3.exe (it is good to save it for future reference).

The next step is to run env_update.exe from C:\Symbian\9.1\S60_3rd_MR\Epoc32\tools\nokia_compiler\bin. You have to select the 3.2.x compiler (option number 2) and to select y add this compiler to the PATH.

I have also set the EPOCROOT variable to be a system environment variable, I think that Visual Studio will complain if it is not set.

Afterwards go to the group folder of your 3rd edition application and type the following:

bldmake bldfiles
 
abld makefile vs6

This command will generate a Visual Studio workspace for the project in epoc32\build\<SOURCE_PATH>\<PROJECT_NAME>\WINSCW.

Open Visual Studio and open this workspace. Now you should be able to compile and run/debug your application from within the IDE. Please note that the executable for the debug session in the project's options has to be the name of the executable itself, and not epoc.exe! (It is like this for default, just don't change it to epoc.exe).

One annoying thing that happens to me is that, in debug mode, everytime I want to step into a function that is not defined in the current file, Visual Studio prompts me to point it to the .cpp or .h file where that function is defined. But I can live with that.

The information presented here is official (not a hack) and it was originally found on the Symbian website.

References

Setting up the SDK tools and compilers on developer.uiq.com

Thread on Forum Nokia DiBo