Symbian has two “all in one” toolkit products: the Application Development Toolkit (ADT) which contains all the tools you need for developing applications, and the Product Development Toolkit (PDT) which contains the tools needed for creating devices based on the Symbian platform.
The ADT and PDT are being updated to version 1.4 this week and getting a facelift with the inclusion of the latest version of the Carbide.c++ IDE (2.4 2.3). There have been a number of Carbide releases since the Symbian toolkits were last updated, so this change brings a few new features, and significant performance improvements.
UPDATE – Corrected 2.3. Image
Most of the changes are covered in the ADT and PDT release notes. We’ve given a few highlights below:
- Several performance improvements
- Significant speed improvements for importing large projects
- Improved indexing – due to smarter placement of the project root
- Executable View – when debugging, the IDE would get sluggish because EV was refreshing frequently. IDE should be more responsive when debugging.
- Changes to project settings, bld.inf files, re-opening workspace. You should notice a snappier response when changing workspaces or re-opening your workspace. The previous versions were refreshing too frequently.
- New Launch Configuration wizard
- Intuitive wizard that allows the developer to easily select a debug target – using simple dialog with embedded help.
- Hover Help – hover your pointer over a recognized Symbian symbol in an editor and see the Symbian API Reference information appear to assist you.
- Carbide.c++ News Reader – introducing the Carbide.c++ News view which provides the latest Carbide, Symbian, and S60 news as well as news on tools updates and screencasts for Carbide development.
We continue to work to improve the developer experience on Carbide.c++. Version 3 is in development and we are very excited to share our ideas with users. We will be posting our updates on the Foundation’s Wiki site.
Has the toolkit been released yet? The download page seems to still have ADT v1.4.
Yes! ADT 1.4 and PDT 1.4 are update with Carbide 2.4 (the previous version of the ADT was 1.0, and included carbide 2.04). I see that’s a bit confusing. I’ll see if I can get this edited.
I absolutely appreciate the effort done on making Carbide better/faster. It’s great.
BUT, how does it fit in the picture of Qt/Trolltech/Nokia being pushing now more and more their Qt Creator into the Mobile area?
Definitely can_do(Carbide) > can_do(QtCreator) for now, but in perspective what should developers do?
Being QtCreator an opensource project, should you guys join effort to avoid duplicate and bring QtCreator up-to-speed?
Or is it the other way around?
After all Carbide is originally from Nokia: isn’t it any more?
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@Hamish Willee
I download ADT v1.4 a few days back. It contains Carbide C++ 2.3.0 and even now the site says it contains Carbide 2.3.0. It is all dashed confusing
It’s great to get improvements to Carbide, but I’m looking forward to a future where we don’t have “one size fits all” downloads – even now, we have to have two sizes. I would like a system where the intial download is small and gets you some kind of “manager” that deals with downloading everything else you need.This would allow us to reflect the rich set of tools properly, and not have to guess which subsets are most useful to each target audience.
@Hamish and @Anand – Yes the title should be Carbide 2.3
@William The “Download manager” will be a 2010 tools initiative
@Ivan The Symbian community is lucky (or unlucky) to have two thriving open source tools communities (Eclipse/CDT/Carbide and Qt Creator) working to provide Symbian developers with development options.
As the Symbian Foundation, we need to help the Symbian community understand which tool is right for the job they need.
While Qt Creator for Symbian is currently only ready for early adopters, there is no doubt it is well on its way to being an important part of the Symbian tools eco-system.
For more details and discussion, check out the Symbian forum at http://developer.symbian.org/forum/showthread.php?t=4169
Just cleared up the numbering confusion anyway
This download site seems to be fine:
http://developer.symbian.org/main/tools_and_kits/downloads/view.php?id=4
But this site refers to PDT 1.3:
http://developer.symbian.org/main/tools_and_kits/downloads/view.php?id=5
@Max.
The first link refers to PDT 1.4, which is correct. The second link refers to the PDK for Symbian^3 – a completely different product. Where are these links appearing that makes you think that they are wrong?
Hi @Max, now I think I get it. You’re saying that the platform release page (http://developer.symbian.org/main/tools_and_kits/downloads/view.php?id=5) needs to be updated to also refer to PDT 1.4. Thanks, I’ll raise a bug.
Just downloaded and installed ADT v1.4 — the improvements to Carbide are really noticeable — great stuff!
I agree that a download manager would be good. I still had to download GCC, SDK, etc to get this to actually let me build an app.
Also — am I missing something — or where have the ‘App’ project creation templates gone? The only ones I found were for console applications.
Finally — I think that you can safely remove the UIQ UI option from the list. The one guy in the world who wants this can set it up manually; more efficient than the thousands who don’t having to read that option.
Thanks!
faster, better indexing
good job
thx
Why FN website still contain Carbide.c++ v2.0? Is that a secret version only for SF members and not for FN? Are you in quarrel with FN?
Most of all Symbian C++ coders looking for a new Carbide on FN website. All documents refer to FN portal for carbide download. And you guys making that bullshit whole year: put new ver into ADT or make it aviable other online updater. So i find out that from 3rd party news.
Please update Carbide page on FN or delete it!
@paulbsymbian: You write: “The Symbian community is lucky (or unlucky) to have two thriving open source tools communities (Eclipse/CDT/Carbide and Qt Creator) working to provide Symbian developers with development options.”
At least to me (as a 3rd party developer) this is not yet what it feels like, though it is obviously that this is the ultimate goal…
From where I am, it still appears as if the tools (as far as their Symbian-specific nature goes, not the underlying platform) is largely driven by one major contributor, and currently in a “limbo” state where some features in Carbide, such as the UI Designer, that would be useful for me today, have been largely frozen because something better will come along in the future (just like the overall Avkon vs. Qt story), while that “something” depends entirely on the roadmap decisions of Nokia to become relevant to exernal developers.
So to me this feels more more like “roadmap confusion” rather than “spoilt for choice”.
As a minor point, up until some time during the Carbide 2.1 release cycle, there used to be quite lively discussion on the Cabride.c++ beta list on Google Groups, with a lot of involvement from the Carbide folks – that simply fizzled out somehow, without even a pointer as to where that particular part of the community could move next.
All that said, I am certainly glad that Carbide.c++ 2.3 has been released, am I am downloading it as I write. But for someone with a “day job” in Symbian development and my own deadlines to meet, it would certainly be easier to keep involved in the community if the dust after the transition from Nokia to the Foundation would settle a bit more quickly.
ciao marcus
@truf – we aren’t Nokia so we can’t arbitrarily delete content on their site. Actually they have more than just v2, they have the more recent versions too.
I agree the story is confused. I’ll follow up to see if we can improve this.
@Marcus
Qt creator is getting a lot of investment from Nokia at the moment because Qt is the way forward for application developers. They are working hard to get it Symbian-solid, and in the application/UI space, you’re quite right, this is where all the work is going.
However Qt Creator is never going to be the Symbian C++ development IDE. I doubt that much more investment will happen in the UI areas of carbide, but we are actively working to keep it as a first class IDE for general Symbian C++ development.
@Max
The documentation is correct for the reason explained here: http://developer.symbian.org/webbugs/show_bug.cgi?id=5909#c3
In summary, the PDK tools lists the PDT that was used to build it, and which is hence known to be compatible (in this case PDT 1.3)
@Hamish: Thanks, as always, for the clarification. I think this story should be told in those terms much more clearly (and, of course, in an ideal world a company the size of Nokia that needs to play catch-up with Apple and Google should not have to make tough choices between investment into the overall IDE, and UI-specific tools, when they can afford to develop two Widget frameworks on top of Qt for Symbian and Maemo at the same time
).
As for Nokia’s websites, I found that the “main” download page on Forum Nokia (http://www.forum.nokia.com/info/sw.nokia.com/id/dbb8841d-832c-43a6-be13-f78119a2b4cb.html) as well as the automatically-generated version number on http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.php/Carbide.c++ (created from an unknown RSS feed by some Yahoo Pipes magic) still reference older versions.
In particular, Forum Nokia, which I would expect to be the first port of call for someone researching Symbian development from a newbie perspective, still has the old 2.0 version. I think that this is something worth straightening out. I think developers hate very few things more than being kept away from the cutting edge.
ciao marcus
Just trying 2.3 and it seems good to me.
But, I’d like to point out adding an RSS reader is not time well spent for the developers of Carbide. I have a browser and mail client to do that for me.
Remember, do one thing and do it well.
Mark.
P.S Keep up the good work
@Marcus, We’re aiming to make Symbian the first port of call for Symbian-specific development. Forum Nokia are in broad agreement with this, but there is still a lot of detail to be sorted out. The carbide download story is just one part of this effort … this specific issue has been escalated and hopefully we’ll see only one download link in the near future, and that will be a pointer to the ADT download page.
@Mark
> adding an RSS reader is not time well spent for the developers of Carbide.
Personally I agree – particularly when I have no control over the feeds being aggregated.
One other thing I’d add is that the Carbide team are still very responsive to bug reports – so if there is any feature you think can be reasonably sold as a bug by its absence, then that is a good route for getting some discussion started.
Nice to see so much feedback on the Carbide product. I thought I would add a few comments from a Nokia perspective.
@Mark – the RSS feader is not really meant to be a standard news feed. The Getting Started section is actually a specific news feed that contains links to getting started with developing on Symbian. All the links are meant to be very specific to developer issues – a kind of window from the tools team to the user. We are interested in your thoughts about this as always.
@Marcus – Forum Nokia has been the traditional site for hosting Carbide for the past several years. I am working with FN to update their site with corrected links for products. Expect an update soon.
——–
Another source of confusion is around the Carbide vs Qt Creator discussion. This invokes very passionate responses from users and lots of conjecture on the future of the each product. I can say that Nokia has not clearly stated the role of both products but that really does not matter. Both products have strong development teams behind them and have a strong commitment for continued development. Neither product is going away.
Our Eclipse-based team is larger than ever before and we are tasked to support the future platforms for Nokia and the Symbian Community.
Last – thanks for noticing the improvements in v2.3. We have a few more products in queue which will be released every 8 weeks (v2.4 is due out in early January). Release will be available in the P2 tool (you will also see news on this in the Carbide RSS News Reader). Please post issues/bug/enhancements in the SF Bugzilla tool and stay tuned for news about our upcoming v3.0 product (due out in May/June).
Thanks for showing your passion about tools!
/Mike
@Mike
Thanks. That is positive news. Everyone, note the correct route for getting feedback to Mike’s team.
@Mike: thanks a lot for shedding some light on these things.
Do you think it would make sense for you to post something to that effect to the Google Groups beta list as well, to make sure everyone in that part of the community knows about the current status, and where to go for questions, suggestions etc.? Perhaps it even makes sense to wind down the list, and point people to the designated forum for discussing Carbide nightlies, to transition this project “officially” to SF?
Moving my projects to Carbide.c++ 2.3 as we speak…