About AIF Builder

Each Symbian OS UI variant has a shell program, such as Extras on TechView and Crystal, or the Launcher on Quartz, that allows the user to run application programs. For an application to be run from such a shell program, there must exist at least the following two files: an application file (.app), which, minimally contains a unique identifier (UID) to identify the program, and an application information file (.aif) to specify the application’s icon and caption.

Other files may also be required depending on the programming language: for example, for a Java application an additional text file (.txt) is required to specify the command line to the JVM when the application is launched, while for OPL, the OPL source file has to modified.

AIF Builder is an application that runs on your development machine (not on the phone or Emulator) to help you easily create the required files. It works with all UI variants and programming languages.

AIF Builder also allows you to launch the AIF Icon Designer program. This helps you create the application's icon in the required Symbian OS-specific bitmap file format, called the multi-bitmap file format (.mbm).