Introduction to the Developer Library

The Developer Library is a large document set. This topic is designed to help you get the most from it.

The Symbian Developer Library collects the essential information needed by developers programming for Symbian OS. The reference and guide material in this edition:

• Describes the OS architecture

• Documents the set of public APIs available to C++ application developers

• Describes essential programming conventions and idioms

• Describes the development tools and build environment needed to create and deploy software using the Microsoft Windows hosted emulator to target real phones from Symbian licensees

The Developer Library is distributed as an HTML documentation set, included with licensee SDKs and available as a download directly from the Symbian DevNet support site. It is designed to be compatible with any Web browser supporting tables and stylesheets, including the Symbian OS Web application and recent versions of popular browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Where appropriate, source code for example projects is included in SDKs and is available for download from the DevNet.

Check the DevNet site for the latest developer news and for software and Developer Library updates.

This Developer Library edition is aimed at C++ developers writing applications for Symbian OS Version 6.1, including those migrating existing code written for earlier releases, for example v5 and v6.0, as well as those coming to it for the first time.

This edition of the Developer Library consists of:

About the Developer Library, which you are reading now, a guide to the library itself and how to use it. Key topics include Documentation Conventions, describing the conventions used in the Developer Library, and Release Notes and Reference Omissions which detail the documentation coverage in this Developer Library edition.

Developer's Guide, an introduction to Symbian OS programming. Key topics include introductions to new features in v6.1, a Hands On which aims to quickly get you up and running and programming, topics on programming style and essential idioms, and a section describing how to use and configure the Windows hosted emulator.

API Guide, a subsystem by subsystem guide consisting of thumbnail overviews of all key APIs, and Using and How To topics which provide detailed discussion and coding examples for many of the most frequently used APIs.

API Reference, the single source of reference information for all public C++ APIs in Symbian OS, including a new Quick reference section for all documented APIs.

Tools and Utilities, a guide and reference to the programming language independent utilities supplied with SDKs, including icon and resource file tools, help compiler, installation package generator, and file conversion utilities.

Glossary of terms and key concepts appearing in the Developer Library.

Index, an index to all classes, enumerations, typedefs, constants and flags, non-member functions and macros which are documented in the Developer Library, as well as a complete tree index to the Developer Library itself.