Setup your Symbian C++ Development Environment on WindowsXp

this semester, we're studying Symbian OS Development for mobile phone software, the course started with C++ development using Carbide C++ and will move later to J2ME, we are currently interested in the S60 platform.

preparing for my next lab assignment, i invite you to join me in installing Carbide C++ on my WindowsXp PC, we'll proceed as follows:

1. install ActivePerl-5.6.1 (required to build your projects) (this setup adds some env variables).
2. install S60 SDK for Symbian, i don't recommend beta versions.
3. install JRE (required by the Carbide Eclipse-based IDE).
4. install Carbide C++.
5. for console apps to run, you'll need to add "textshell" in a separate line at the beginning of your "{SDK_PATH}\Epoc32\Data\epoc.ini" file.

then open the Carbide C++ and create a new Symbian OS C++ project-> Generic Symbian OS-> Basic Console Application(EXE) build and run. Let's call this first project "Test"

Troubleshooting:

1. when i first tried to run, i got this error "BLDMAKE ERROR: Platform ARMV5 not supported by \Symbian\Carbide\workspace\Test\group\BLD.INF" i found that the BLD.INF file contained the project information specially the platform details, as a windows user you expect that to be: "PRJ_PLATFORMS WINSCW GCCE" i found it was "PRJ_PLATFORMS DEFAULT" u can change it manually but to avoid doing that everytime i found it can be customized in the Carbide under Windows-> Preferences-> Carbide.C++-> Platform Filtering Preferences where i unchecked everything except WINSCW and GCCE.
   
   update: i found later that you can choose not to install the ARMV5 and GCCE in the SDK setup and everything will still work fine for you - as far as we are concerned.


2. Windows Vista users may face other problems but i can't cover everything here, however i can say that the Symbian online community is very active and you're likely to find the solution to ur problem after a simple search, just be patient it may seem difficult at the beginning.

next time we'll go through our first console application! have fun!!!