June 25, 2009
© NS BASIC Corporation. All rights reserved.
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NS Basic/Symbian OS 1.2 Release Notes June 25, 2009 © NS BASIC Corporation. All rights reserved. |
NS Basic/Symbian OS 1.2 and NS Basic/Symbian OS 1.2 Pro offer rapid, easy programming for Symbian OS devices. If you have used Visual Basic, you'll be able to come up to speed quickly. If not, you will still find NS Basic to be easiest way to program Symbian OS devices.
Version 1.2 adds a number of new features. In addtion to Tcp/IP, support has been added for BlueTooth and IrDA.
NS Basic/Symbian OS is a complete development environment. It creates programs for all Symbian OS devices running Symbian OS S60 3rd and 5th Edition and UIQ 3. NS Basic/Symbian OS runs on Windows 2000, XP and Vista. Using Parallels or VMWare, it will run on Mac OS. It will run on Linux using Win4Lin and VMWare.
NS Basic/Symbian OS will compile programs written using NS Basic/Palm with little or no change.
NS Basic/Symbian OS is a commercial software product, licensed subject to the License Agreement that must be must be agreed to before installation.
This document contains what you need to know to install and run NS Basic/Symbian OS.
Please visit our web site for the latest version of this document. You'll see the latest installation notes and updated news.
If you are installing from the release CD, you can install NS Basic/Symbian OS directly from this document if you are using a compatible browser*. Click on NSBasic_SymbianOS.exe and select the option "Run this program from its current location".
Otherwise, navigate to the CD and run the installer directly from there. If you have an earlier version installed, the installer will automatically uninstall the old version.
This will install all the necessary files onto your desktop, and put NS Basic/Symbian OS on your Start menu.
You may see the message "The publisher cannot be determined due to the problem below: Authenticode signature not found." It is safe to ignore this message.
Once the installation is complete, start NS Basic/Symbian OS. If you have the full version, enter your serial number into Register under the Help menu. Otherwise, the programs you create will time out after 5 days.
Register your copy so we can keep you up to date. (If you bought directly from us, you are automatically registered).
* If you are using a browser such as FireFox, this may not work.
If you have problems with the installation, see Tech Note 01.
The new functions are: SerialOpen, S erialClose, SerialSet, SerialSend, SerialRecieve and SerialReceiveWithEvents.
The new properties are:
Gradient Color1: The top (or left) color.
Gradient Color2: The bottom (or right) color
Gradient Style: 1 for top to bottom, 0 for left to right.
You can use a bitmap instead of a label of the same size. Since Bitmap objects can have a script (just like a Button object), BitMap object buttons work the same way as Button Object buttons - but there are more options on appearance.
Sizing images on Bitmaps: You can now specify the image to appear on a bitmap as well as its size. The new properties are:
Picture: The pathname to the image. It can be bmp, gif, jpg and other format.
Stretch: If False, the image will be the size of the orginal image, aligned at the top left. If the image if larger than the bitmap object, it will be clipped. If Stretch is True, the image will be scaled to fit the current size of the bitmap object.
Keep in mind that the maximum size of a bitmap is 65,512 bytes. The formula for calculating the size of a bitmap is (width * height) * 8.
Projects with existing bitmap objects will continue to work as before.
SetTheme(themeName) function: This new function lets you change the Theme at any time in your program. The Theme file has to be included in the Resources of the project. themeName is the name of the file, without an extension.
To edit a theme or to create a new one, start the IDE and open a project. Select the Theme Editor under the Tools menu. It will automatically open the theme for the current form for editing, but allows you to also modify other themes or create new ones.
Projects are automatically given the "Symbian" theme. Projects that are imported from NS Basic/Palm can be given the "Classic" theme if you want to retain the original look. There is no restriction on changing the theme of an existing program.
The theme you specify in Project Properties will be automatically be added as a resource to your project. If you use additional themes, you have to add them as resources. Themes are kept in c:\NSBasic_Symbian\Themes. You can put additional themes you create in that folder or elsewhere.
Note on the "Symbian" Theme: This theme is intended to be a good standard theme. We haven't come up with a final version of this. Feel free to contribute an improved version!
The maximum size of a bitmap is 64k. If you specify more than one image in a bitmap, the total of all the images cannot exceed 64k. Note that the size used of the image is as a bitmap, which can be quite a bit larger than your original image if it is a gif or jpg.
If you need to display an image larger than 64k, you need to tile it into smaller images that are within the limit and display them as separate bitmaps.
Projects: Your project is saved in a .prj file. When you compile, the following files are created in the c:\NSBasic_Symbian\Download folder.
_S60_selfsigned.sisx file is a self signed installer for S60 devices. Click on it and the Nokia Application Installer should transfer it to your device.
_UIQ_selfsigned.sis file is a self signed installer for UIQ devices. Click on it and the UIQ Application Installer should transfer it to your device._S60_unsigned.sis file is an unsigned installer for S60 devices that only appears in the Pro version. See Tech Note 11 for more information on signing._UIQ_unsigned.sis file is an unsigned installer for UIQ devices that only appears in the Pro version. See Tech Note 11 for more information on signing.Compile.log file contains all the messages from the compilation: send this to NS Basic with the Error.log file if the .sisx or .sis file is not created.Error.log , if it exists, will have messages from building the installer..prc file is the actual executable.Make sure you are building for the correct type of device. In the Tools menu, select Options, then Compile/Download. In that screen, select either S60, UIQ or both.
Signing: Symbian requires all apps be signed, a process specifying which apps will run on what devices, and what rights they have to do certain operations. By default, NS Basic/Symbian OS creates Self Signed apps. As these are not Trusted Apps, a setting has to be changed on some devices before they will install. See Tech Note 11 for more information on Signing.
To create app with a higher level of signing than Self Signed, NS Basic/Symbian OS Pro is required.
(S60 Devices) To allow Self Signed apps to run, go to the Symbian Tools (or Installatons) menu on the device and look for the App Manager. Start it. Select 'Options', then 'Settings'. Change the "Software Installation" setting from "Signed Only" to "All".
(S60 Devices) To see what apps are running on your device, hit the app key on the device while your program is running. It goes back to the app menu. Your program continues running. Hold the app key down to get the task switcher to get it back. To resume running an app, hilite it and push the select key. To kill an app on a device with a QWERTY keyboard, hit the delete key.
Icons: See Tech Note 9 for complete details on creating icons for your app.
Terminating your App: On Symbian OS, when a new app starts, yours goes into the background (See above, "What apps are running?".) To actually stop your app, you need to actually execute an NS Basic STOP statement. It's in the Language Reference. (For those coming from the Palm OS environment, this is quite different from what you are used to.)
Installing Additional Files: You can include additional files in your installer by adding them to the Resource area of the Project Explorer. They will be installed in the same folder as your app. The same is true for Libraries.
Install Location: By default, apps are installed in the "Installat." folder on S60 devices, and into Tools on UIQ devices. You can change this in Project Properties.
Apps can be installed to the device or to a card. If they are installed to the device, they will launch more quickly, as the memory is faster.
Data Files: Data files you create using the db* statements are created in your app's private directory on the device. If your app is deleted, the files are also deleted. If a newer version of your app is installed, the files are retained (make sure your installer does not overwrite them!) The security of the Symbian OS on its private folders is pretty good: you cannot read or write to these files from another app, which can make it difficult to copy files off the device. However, you can use the VFSLib to read and write files to a storage card, where they will be publicly accessable.
Make sure your firmware is up to date. We've seen some older devices with the original firmware on them that have problems. Updating the firmware seems to solve this. Check with your manufacturer.
Unsupported Features: There are some features that are not yet completely in NS Basic/Symbian. Major ones are 5-Way support and Serial Communications. We plan to add these in a future release. (Not all Symbian devices have 5 way buttons.)
Handbook: The Handbook documents 5-Way support in Section 15. Please ignore this section until we release support for this.
The Scroller.Current methods hangs programs. Do not use these features until we have a fix.
Vista has some screen display issues in the IDE.
The NS Basic/Symbian OS Handbook. It is shipped with each copy of NS Basic/Symbian OS. It is approximately 150 pages and details all commands, functions and statement, with examples for each of them.
The Language Reference under the Help menu contains a summary of all statements, functions, objects and constants.
The Tech Notes contain detailed information on a number of topics, including add ons to NS Basic. On the NS Basic/Symbian OS Help Menu.
Tutorials: A variety of different tutorials to help get you started. On the NS Basic/Symbian OS Help Menu.
Sample Code: There are a number of samples installed with NS Basic/Symbian OS. We have set up a Files section on the NS Basic Web Board, where users can add additional samples.
See the list of Common Problems.
The NS Basic/Symbian OS Web Board. Post questions and comments, and get answers in a public forum, plus more samples to download. Essential!
Email Support: Send your questions to support@nsbasic.com
Tech Notes: The Tech Notes posted on our web site give additional and specialized information on a wide variety of topics.
Updaters: From time to time, we may offer updates to NS Basic/Symbian OS modules for download at no charge. Register your copy to make sure you are on the list.
© NS BASIC Corporation. All rights reserved.