Constructor 1.8.1 posted; getting started with V9
Earlier this week, an engineer at PalmSource contacted me to get help in finding and fixing the "too much memory" bug that's affected Constructor for Palm OS on Windows for a while. I was able to give him a good reproduction strategy, based on my communications with developers who've encountered this, and he was able to reproduce and fix the problem. In an amazing two-day turnaround, PalmSource posted the new Constructor for Palm OS 1.8.1 on their site on Friday.
Its available on their OS 5 SDK page at http://www.palmos.com/dev/tools/sdk/sdk50.html. It is just a single executable file -- you still need a working Constructor installation to use it to have the required support files.
Getting Started with V9
V9 went out the door with a few small problems, and some quirks that will catch you on first installation. Here are a couple of tips for making using the product smoother.
1) PilRC Designer doesn't show the full user interface.
I didn't catch this since I had left-over registry entries in my system from a previous version, but the PilRC Designer 2.03 we ship doesn't show the Skin selection control by default. Since the default skin is from the AlphaSmart Dana, you'll want to add this ASAP. To do so, click on the little drop-down button at the end of toolbas, choose "Add or Remove Buttons", then choose "Customize". Go to the Commands tab, pick the Design category, and then drag the Skins control from the list box to the toolbar.
2) Start the emulator and simulator before debugging to them.
Both the Palm OS Emulator and Palm OS 5 Simulator act differently when first run. POSE wants you to setup an initial session, with a downloaded ROM file, while PalmSim wants you to approve a license agreement and then find the simulator ROM image. CW doesn't ship with any ROM images -- you'll have to pull them from your private stash or download them from PalmSource and the licensees. PalmSim does come with its ROM images -- you'll find the release version of the Simulator's images in "CW for Palm OS Tools/Palm OS 5 Simulator/Release", while the debug simulator's ROMs are next door in "CW for Palm OS Tools/Palm OS 5 Simulator/Debug".
You can start up the tools by selecting them as your debugger target in a project, and then using the PalmOS menu "Start Emulator" command. You can also run them directly from a Windows explorer window.
3) Register on the POL site
The Object Library for Palm OS developers have a support site at http://www.aqpoint.com/pol/ . To get access, you'll need to register here, and then you'll be able to read their support board and see when new versions of POL are posted. We are working with TeT Co to make sure they can deliver patches to the library to V9 customers on a timely basis, and we'll also be including the current version when we release patches for CW.
4) Use the PDF version of the Palm OS API Reference
Due to a production error, we included the wrong Palm OS API Reference HTML Help file on the CD. The one we provided has a mostly empty table of contents and has corrupted hyperlinks. We will be providing a new version of this in January, but in the meantime, use the PDF version of this document supplied in the "CW for Palm OS Support/Documentation" folder. We are sorry for the inconvienence.
Send feedback to combee@techwood.org
Copyright © 2004 Benjamin L. Combee
Palm OS is a registered trademark of PalmSource, Inc.
Metrowerks and CodeWarrior are registered trademarks of Metrowerks Inc.
The views expressed on this website/weblog are those of mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of PalmSource or Metrowerks.
qwertYAK / frobnovich
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