03.01.2013 Views

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

ased Symbian OS phones. The Storage Manager on the emulator is only<br />

useful for installing data or pure Java programs or, if required, checking that<br />

a secure .sis file is working.<br />

14.3.6 Delivering Applications to End Users<br />

We've now described how you can use the Installation File Generator (makesis) to produce<br />

a .sis file and how to transfer and install that file from a PC onto your phone. In reality, the<br />

main customer of a .sis file is an end user, so it's important to think carefully about<br />

delivering applications:<br />

� Make sure you replace test UIDs with releasable UIDs allocated by Symbian, as<br />

explained in <strong>Chapter</strong> 4.<br />

� Provide enough instructions to make it easy for end users to install and uninstall your<br />

software.<br />

14.4 Designing Applications for UIQ – Some Guidelines<br />

By now, you may feel that you're beginning to get used to the style of applications built using<br />

the UIQ GUI. Style here is not in the way you program, but in the way that users see your<br />

programs. Good application style (like good programming) is partly something provided and<br />

enabled by the system, and partly something you have to do yourself.<br />

The application style guidelines for UIQ are designed to take some fundamental things into<br />

account:<br />

� End users may not be very knowledgeable about computers. They might be frightened<br />

by many kinds of technology, but we want them to feel comfortable with Symbian OS<br />

and its applications. If you've read this book this far, you're probably not one of them –<br />

so you have to think hard if you're going to deliver friendly, easy to use applications to<br />

average end users.<br />

� The physical parameters of the hardware −208 × 320 pixels or 240 × 320 pixels VGA<br />

portrait screen, pen-operation, no keyboard, hardware keys for up, down and confirm,<br />

built-in phone with speaker and microphone.<br />

� Basic usability criteria such as task-orientation, browse-mostly, single- tap to open,<br />

hiding the file system and task list, use of views, menus, folders and dialogs.<br />

The different physical parameters of phones dictate that Symbian and its licensees support<br />

several different user interfaces and the changing application suite requirements will affect<br />

the things we consider important in a GUI. For the moment, however, we'll concentrate on<br />

UIQ as it is.<br />

Apart from following the UIQ style guide, it is also worth looking at the built-in applications<br />

and taking inspiration from them. The more time you spend planning and designing your<br />

application, the easier you will find it is to create and the more rewarding the end result will<br />

be.<br />

The following sections list some of the most important GUI style rules for UIQ. More detailed<br />

information on designing for UIQ smartphones can be found in the UIQ Style Guide, and<br />

Designing for UIQ within the Technical Papers section of the Developer Library in the UIQ<br />

SDK.<br />

14.4.1 Planning the GUI<br />

Before you start creating the GUI of your application, the following stylistic aspects are worth<br />

considering:

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!