Chapter 1

Chapter 14: Finishing Touches
Overview
After several heavy programming chapters, it's time to step back from the C++ and take a
look at some of the softer, but equally important, aspects of producing a well-crafted GUI
application for Symbian OS smartphones based on UIQ. The title of this chapter is Finishing
Touches, but that's probably misleading – without these finishing touches, your application
will be a non-starter in the mass market.
In this chapter, we'll go through the following improvements to the HelloGUI application
that was the subject of Chapter 4:
� adding a button bar and buttons to the user interface
� adding an icon and a localizable language caption to be displayed in the Application
Launcher
� wrapping up the whole application into a single installable package and certifying it to
allow easy delivery and secure installation for end users.
We'll also discuss how to build applications from the command line, using some of the
underlying Symbian OS build tools. All these tools and the file formats used are described in
greater detail within the Tools and Utilities section of Developer Library supplied on the UIQ
SDK.
Finally, we'll look at some of the stylistic aspects to consider when creating GUI applications
based on UIQ. The aim of this style guide is also to help maintain consistency between
applications produced by different suppliers.
Let's begin by adding the finishing touches to HelloGUI. You'll find all the source code in
\scmp\HelloGUIfull, though all source files are still named HelloGui.*
14.1 Adding Buttons
Adding graphical icons to the button bar of your program can make a big difference to the
end user's impression of your application, as well as enhancing usability. The procedure for
doing this is fairly straightforward – in fact, all you need to do is to make the following
changes:
� Create Windows bitmaps for the icons and make them available to the application at
build time.
� Change the resource file for the application to include specifications for the button bar.
� Change the project specification (.mmp) file to enable conversion of your Windows
bitmaps to Symbian OS format files during the application build process.
� That's it! You don't need to modify any C++ at all! The (Figure 14.1) screenshot shows
the button bar of the HelloGUI application we're working toward.
Figure 14.1
Like some of the built-in applications available on UIQ, there are graphical icons visible on
the button bar of the program itself.
14.1.1 Creating the Bitmaps