Qt for Symbian

Chapter 4. Qt Mobility APIs

Tommi Mikkonen, Tony Torp and Frank H.P. Fitzek

This chapter introduces the very first Qt Mobility APIs. The goal of these APIs is to enable the use of mobile phone functionalities in Qt applications. The APIs are easy to use and are designed for cross-platform usage.

Introduction

In the previous chapters, we introduced the main concepts of general cross-platform Qt. As demonstrated, the Qt framework introduces a powerful way to create cross-platform user interface applications. Moreover, the general cross-platform portion of Qt also provides APIs for implementing the most important system features, including facilities such as example networking, file-related functionality and multi-threading, to name but a few. By their nature, these system features exist on all platforms — including both the portable and desktop environments. Consequently, it is only natural that they are provided for cross-platform development as an integral part of the general Qt.

However, portable devices like smart phones have many special features. These escape the common cross-platform Qt libraries. For example, location information and mobile messaging systems are some features that are typically applicable to portable systems only. Since Qt is now supported by a number of mobile platforms, a new set of APIs for utilizing mobile features in a cross-platform fashion is becoming a practical necessity. The Qt Mobility package implements a set of APIs that grants access to the most ...