Cross-Platform Application Development on Symbian
Mathew, John (2010)
Mathew, John
Metropolia Ammattikorkeakoulu
2010
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-201005189745
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-201005189745
Tiivistelmä
This thesis takes an in depth look at how a cross-platform application development frame-work like Qt was ported on to Symbian. One aim of this work is to study the various under-lying layers of Qt, interaction with the various Symbian/ S60 components, build systems integrations, native OS considerations and memory management. Another objective is to examine Qt application development and portability.
The theoretical basis of this study lies with the Qt application framework, the Symbian operating system and the User Interface framework of Symbian which is S60. The study investigates the porting of Qt on top of Symbian, and includes an overview of Open C framework available in Symbian and its usage by Qt. A particular feature like audio is cho-sen to study the end to end behavior of the cross platform technology. In order to obtain a better understanding of the theory and also to demonstrate the portability and ease of development using the Qt framework, an audio application is developed which is capable of playing mp3 files on a phone. That includes the use of Software Development Kits, In-tegrated Development Environments, its configurations and how to execute the developed application on a Smartphone. The development of this application also enables the study of the integration of the build systems, platform security and memory management. Through this thesis we understand how a cross-platform application framework can be developed on top of Symbian.
Based on the findings, the current state of Qt and its future is discussed. Qt is widely used in the development of Graphical User Interface programs and also for non-GUI programs such as console tools and servers. QT uses a “write once, compile anywhere” approach. Using a single source tree and a simple recompilation, applications can be written for Windows, Linux, Solaris, MacOS, Windows CE and Symbian. In the near future Qt will be a very interesting option for the mobile software development.
The theoretical basis of this study lies with the Qt application framework, the Symbian operating system and the User Interface framework of Symbian which is S60. The study investigates the porting of Qt on top of Symbian, and includes an overview of Open C framework available in Symbian and its usage by Qt. A particular feature like audio is cho-sen to study the end to end behavior of the cross platform technology. In order to obtain a better understanding of the theory and also to demonstrate the portability and ease of development using the Qt framework, an audio application is developed which is capable of playing mp3 files on a phone. That includes the use of Software Development Kits, In-tegrated Development Environments, its configurations and how to execute the developed application on a Smartphone. The development of this application also enables the study of the integration of the build systems, platform security and memory management. Through this thesis we understand how a cross-platform application framework can be developed on top of Symbian.
Based on the findings, the current state of Qt and its future is discussed. Qt is widely used in the development of Graphical User Interface programs and also for non-GUI programs such as console tools and servers. QT uses a “write once, compile anywhere” approach. Using a single source tree and a simple recompilation, applications can be written for Windows, Linux, Solaris, MacOS, Windows CE and Symbian. In the near future Qt will be a very interesting option for the mobile software development.