Porting to the Symbian Platform: Open Mobile Development in C/C++

Chapter 6. Other Port Enablers

Most problems go away if you just wait long enough. It might look like I'm standing motionless but I'm actively waiting for our problems to go away. I don't know why this works but it does.

—Dilbert

In this chapter, we look at some other APIs that have been recently released or are coming soon to devices based on the Symbian platform, which should all make porting code to the Symbian platform easier in appropriate circumstances. By the end of the chapter, you should have a good overview of the following technologies, including where and how they can be used:

• real-time graphics and audio (RGA) libraries

• Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL)

• OpenKODE

• Qt.

These technologies can be used as target APIs for porting from other libraries and, with the exception of the RGA libraries, they provide cross-platform APIs which allow you to port code written for them to the Symbian platform with minimal changes. They should make a port easier and, in many cases, they also improve the portability of the code to other platforms.

Real-time Graphics and Audio Libraries

Nokia's real-time graphics and audio (RGA) libraries provide C++ developers with access to S60 functionality, without the need to use the Symbian C++ idioms that the native APIs require. For example, you can use the RGA libraries to access multimedia and graphics services on the phone without having to use Symbian C++ at all. These libraries allow you to create more complex applications than those possible using Open ...