So, as S60 C++ involves the learning of C++ (which is kinda complex), Nokia has been releasing rapid development tools on the last couple of years. The very first one was Java followed by Python and, as I found out a while ago, Html/CSS/Javascript.
On the last hour, Daniel Rocha hosted a Webinar to explain the main features of the Widget Runtime which is the engine developers will use to develop web apps.
These new web apps will be accessible from the main menu and there will be no difference between them and the common native apps used ’til today. It’s very similar to what Apple allowed on its first gen iPhones.
This tool is aimed on usual web developpement, so it uses the Model-View-Control (HTML-CSS-Javascript) paradigm. As Daniel said on the webinar, the HTMLs are, most times, the simplest of the three as it only needs to define some regions to display things on the screen.
As CSS and Javascript weren’t powerful enough, Nokia guys developped the WRTkit, which is a library which defines buttons, text areas, gradients and many other input, output and customization.
With all that, the structure of the files is very simple:
- info.pl
- [name].html
- [name].css
- [name].js
- [name].png
The first one is a manifest file written in xml and used to define some characteristics of it. The other ones, are html, css and javascript files and the last is the icon which will be used by the program.
After defining all that, it’s only needed to zip the folder, rename it to wgz and install it on the phone.
It’s indeed very very simple to use but it will only work on S60 Feature Pack 2 (and some chosen Feature Pack 1) phones.
Daniel will also release some very interesting links he used on his presentation, for now, I googled the Web Runtime wiki.
