Porting to the Symbian Platform

If you want to write mobile applications without the idioms of Symbian C++, have existing software assets that you'd like to re-use on Symbian devices, or are an open source developer still waiting for an open Linux-based device to gain significant market penetration, this is the book for you!

Beginning with an introduction to the native programming environments available and descriptions of the various technologies and APIs available, you will first learn how to go about porting your code to the Symbian platform.

Next, you will discover how to port to Symbian from other common platforms including Linux and Windows.

Finally, you can examine sample porting projects as well as advanced information on topics such as platform security.

The author team consists of no less than six Forum Nokia Champions, together with technical experts from the Symbian community, either working on Symbian platform packages or third party application development. With this book, you will benefit from their combined knowledge and experience.

In this book, you will learn:

• How to port and make use of existing open source code to speed up your development projects
• How to port applications from other popular mobile platforms to the Symbian platform
• How to write code that is portable across multiple platforms
• The APIs in the Symbian platform for cross-platform development, such as support for standard C/C++ and Qt.

Mark Wilcox has been involved in handset development projects for Ericsson, Fujitsu, Nokia, Panasonic and Samsung. He has worked on everything from a GPRS stack, device drivers and a power management server to messaging applications and the code that draws the soft keys. While working as a Software Architect for Nokia's Multimedia business unit, developing their flagship Nseries products, he developed an interest in the multimedia capabilities of Symbian OS, and drew on this experience when co-authoring Multimedia on Symbian OS: Inside the Convergence Device for Symbian Press in 2008.
Mark became interested in the open source development model while working on Linux-based set-top box products and has been actively attempting to improve the environment for free and open source software on Symbian OS ever since. He has successfully ported a number of application and middleware projects to Symbian OS, both open and closed source, and has written a paper about a recent port of Linux code to Symbian OS for the Symbian Developer Network.
An Accredited Symbian Developer and a Forum Nokia Champion in 2007.