The market for applications based on the UIQ 3 software platform is growing fast with an increasing number of people using a Sony Ericsson UIQ-3 based phone as their main tool for personal and enterprise productivity. To help get application developers up-to-speed, we are adding to our existing range of developer tutorials a new series covering all aspects of creating apps for the UIQ 3 platform and Sony Ericsson's UIQ 3-based phones.

Simon Judge.

This new UIQ 3 tutorial series is written by Simon Judge, a freelance mobile developer who develops for Symbian OS, Java ME and Windows Mobile. Simon Judge also maintains a mobile phone technology blog here>>   In part 1 he describes what UIQ is, where it fits in the Symbian OS ecosystem, why you should develop for it and the fundamentals of designing a new UIQ 3 application. Download Part 1: the UIQ Platform>>

Sony Ericsson Developer World has also gathered all UIQ 3-related development resources in one convenient location: the new Productive Mobility UIQ 3 apps development web resource section. Check it out at www.sonyericsson.com/developer/productivemobility 

Part 1: the UIQ Platform

Part 1 of the UIQ 3 tutorial series introduces UIQ and its history, outlines several reasons to develop for UIQ and Simon Judge explains Symbian OS coding idioms, UI architecture, application framework classes and application directories and files in the following sections:

Symbian coding idioms and conventions
Programming for a mobile phone requires greater care than when developing for the PC or server. Code must be more robust, smaller in size and written to maximize battery life. There are very few reboots to clear memory leaks and close unclosed resources. Consequently, the Symbian OS introduces some idioms and conventions over and above those required for C++ programming.

UIQ UI configurations
The UIQ UI architecture provides a convenient way for the developer to support all current and future UI configurations. UIQ 3 has been designed to support a range of user screen and input configurations. These are accessible using just one code base on the phone and one developer SDK.

Application framework
The application framework classes facilitate everything you need to process user commands, respond to events and contain your application specific controls. A standard set of classes is provided by UIQ to help you create a UI based application. Simon Judge advises that if you derive classes from these you will automatically obtain command handling, event handling and a basis for containing your window controls.

Other tutorials currently available include:

• Formatting audio for local playback>>
• Formatting video for local playback>>
• Getting started with Web Services, JSR 172>>
• Getting started with Web Services with UIQ 3 and gSOAP>>
• Getting started with On-device Debugging for NetBeans tutorial>>
• Getting started with Macromedia Flash Lite 1.1 for mobile applications in Sony Ericsson phones>>

If you have a suggestion for another tutorial subject area, please login and add your idea to the "Add comment" option at the end of this article.

More information:

• Download Part 1: The UIQ Platform tutorial>>
• Download other Sony Ericsson developer tutorials>>
• "Getting productive with UIQ 3 apps", December 2006 news article>>
• Productive Mobility UIQ 3 application development web section>>
• Checkout Simon Judge's technology blog>>