Antony’s Mobile Blog

Last night, I took an exam to get a certification as an Accredited S60 Developer. For those who don’t know about Accredited S60 Developer:

The Accredited S60 Developer programme from Forum Nokia is an objectively measurable framework for continuous professional development for S60 C++ developers. It comprises a curriculum and pass criteria defined by Forum Nokia and an on-line assessment that tests knowledge and understanding of that curriculum, provided my Majinate Limited.

The pre-requisite to become an Accredited S60 Developer is that we have passed Accredited Symbian Developer exam, which is another exam to measure the competency of Symbian OS development. The complete curriculum for Accredited S60 exam is available on Majinate’s web site.

The exam basically contains 36 multiple choices questions. Each question can have up to 3 correct answers. We have to select all the correct answers. If we can select all of them, we will get point. If answer a question incorrectly or missing the correct question. Each question has different weight. It means we will get more points when we answer more difficult question.

The exam also uses Computer-Adaptive Testing (CAT) method. The difficulty level of the next question is based on our previous answer. If we answer it correctly, the next question will be more difficult; and vice versa.

How to prepare the exam? If you are interested taking the exam, I would recommend:

• eLearning Curriculum from Forum Nokia, which is available for free.
• A good S60 book would definitely help. I would recommend Developing Series 60 Applications from EMCC Software Ltd. This has been my favorite book about S60. Although it is written for S60 2nd Edition, most of the topics are still applicable for S60 3rd Edition.

• There is also a new S60 book, S60 Programming: A Tutorial Guide, which may be helpful too. Unfortunately, I don’t have this book yet, so I couldn’t comment further.

For those who are interested taking Accredited Symbian Developer exam, please check my previous posting.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a plan to write an article and example code of using XML parser in Symbian OS. It seems that another Forum Nokia Champion, Paul Todd had the same idea. He posted a nice article about XML parser in Symbian OS 9.x to Forum Nokia Blogs. It’s good that I don’t need to write the same article.

What I would like to share here is a complete example code of XML Parser in Symbian OS. The example code can be run on Symbian OS 8 and 9 phones, which means it can be compiled under S60 2nd Edition FP2/FP3 SDK or S60 3rd Edition SDK. I am planning to release the same example code for UIQ3 soon.

Click here to download my example code of XML parser

The example basically parses an XML file, \data\example.xml, to the main window. The content will be displayed on CEikEdwin control (see picture below).

Note that the code is written as an example; thus it is designed to be as simple as possible. Do not use it in the production code!

One more thing, this is not the official example code from Forum Nokia. It is just my personal example code.

Some of you may now know that I used to a Windows developer (not mobile version, but desktop one). The software that I have developed is still sold on the Internet although the volume has dropped significantly because I don’t maintain it any more.

Recently, I received massive amounts of emails from my customers. They are all complaining that my application does not work any more on Windows XP Service Pack 2 after latest security update 925902 (MS07-017) and security update 928843 (MS07-008). Each time, my application is launched, Windows XP complaints:

The system DLL user32.dll was relocated in memory. The application will not run properly. The relocation occurred because the DLL C:\Windows\System32\Hhctrl.ocx occupied an address range reserved for Windows system DLLs. The vendor supplying the DLL should be contacted for a new DLL.

It affects not only my application, but others too, for instance Realtek HD Audio Control Panel. A binary breaks has happened in Windows XP Service Pack 2. Who should fix the problem? Microsoft or developer? For this specific case, Microsoft released a fix to their latest patch.

If we look at mobile world, especially Symbian OS, we have seen so many binary breaks. Even after Symbian and other manufacturers have promised for binary compatibility starting from version 9, this does not happen in reality. There are still some breaks on many different phones.

So, if something breaks on Symbian OS or UI variants, S60 or UIQ, who should fix it? Symbian (phone manufacturers) or third party developers?

Bonus Links

• Binary Compatibility - Is It Really Important? - from Antony’s Mobile Blog.
• Time to start taking good care of S60 backward compatibility - from Tommi’s Application Blog (S60).
• Application Compatibility - from SymbianExample.com.