S60 Open to new features

Robert Scoble noted a very interesting discussion that was recorded at BloggerCon. Chris Pirillo spoke about products and user feedback: How a user can make a product better. Chris' answer is the blogosphere -- providing and sharing feedback to the developers of the product. An MP3 of the session, "Users in Charge", is available for download on the BloggerCon website.

To make this relevant -- We're aware that CodeWarrior and Symbian OS aren't the easiest IDE and OS to work with. Carbide.c++ is aimed to ease the development process, and we're committed to improving problems that users will eventually find. What you may not know, though, is that we also work closely with Sony Ericsson, UIQ, Symbian, and S60 to recommend ways to improve the OS, UI platform, or phone features to support developers better. So, if you have feedback on our tools, or the OS -- free freeback, or freedback as Chris says -- let us know. This blog is a good place to start.

We're not the only place to provide feedback, obviously -- Forum Nokia discussion boards for S60, UIQ developer discussion board for their software, Symbian, Sony Ericsson Developer World. Whatever you do, let someone know -- or blog it -- we'll do the best we can to respond to your gripe.

As we prepare to release Carbide.c++ v1.1, now is a good time to go over some questions that have been popping up in various forums. There'll be an official FAQ posted on this topic, but I figured I could cover some relevant questions right away. Let me know if something is not covered.

I'm planning to sit down with a colleague at Nokia to think about how we can ease the pain involved with developing with platform security. I've been briefly looking at the various steps and tools that it takes to get a SISX built and running on a device, and I gotta say it's pretty lousy. PlatSec is great for the business, but it sure doesn't make life easy for a developer...

Anyway, things we're going to be looking at are...
- Scanning used APIs during buildtime, and creating a report of which capabilities are being accessed (API-to-Capability-to-API mapping)
- Ability to change the certificate used for the build, so quick testing of capabilities is possible
- Integrating the Symbian signing and pre-certification testing tools into the process

Not sure if any device-side agent would help here -- to scan for accessed capabilities while you're running the app?

In any case, the sheer amount of steps is daunting and making it flow easier should make a lot of developer's work easier... I'll post an update once we've met (in July) and put a plan together.

Carbide.c++ Developer/Professional v1.1 is nearing its beta launch -- we expect to have product available for our closed beta group by the end of the month. Forum Nokia PRO availability (via the tools alpha) is also planned. This will be the final opportunity for beta testers to review the product and submit bug reports. So far, based on the feedback we've received from our beta group we've managed to do some significant changes to the product relatively close to our feature complete date. The beta will reflect our view of what the product should look like, except for a few things like getting icons, docs, licensing, and the webstore into place.

We already have quite a bit of beta testers -- but if you're interested in seriously abusing the beta product, and run a non-english version of Windows XP, please let me know -- the more bugs we identify during beta, the better the end product will be.

Previously C++ project tutorials (that ship with the SDK or are available on Forum Nokia) have consisted of a separate doc and zip file containing the project that required you to import the MMP and open the instructions in a PDF reader. In order to make learning about S60 a little easier, one of our developers is investigating a more convenient way of accessing programming examples, to be delivered in v1.2 (or 1.1 if we're lucky). Take a look...

Hi, and welcome to the Carbide.c++ team blog. As befits a first entry, here's our thinking on why a blog will do a world of good for you, us, and the tool.