Palm OS Programming: The Developer's Guide, 2/e

With more than 16 million PDAs shipped to date, Palm has defined the market for handhelds, having dominated this class of computing devices ever since it began to outpace competitors six years ago. The company's strength is the Palm OS, and developers loyal to this powerful and versatile operating system have created more than 10,000 applications for it. Devices from Handspring, Sony, Symbol, HandEra, Kyocera, and Samsung now use Palm OS, and the number of registered Palm Developers has jumped to 130,000.

If you know C or C++, and want to join those who are satisfying the demand for wireless applications, then Palm OS Programming: The Developer's Guide, Second Edition is the book for you. With expanded coverage of the Palm OS--up to and including the latest version, 4.0--this new edition shows intermediate to experienced C programmers how to build a Palm application from the ground up. There is even useful information for beginners.

Everything you need to write a Palm OS application is here, from user interface design, to coding a handheld application, to writing an associated desktop conduit. All the major development environments are discussed, including commercial products such as Metroworks CodeWarrior, Java-based environments such as Sun KVM and IBM VisualAge Micro Edition, and the Free Software Foundation's PRC-Tools or GCC. The focus, however, is C programming with CodeWarrior and PRC-Tools. New additions to the second edition include:

• A tutorial that takes a C programmer through the installation of necessary tools and the creation of a small handheld application.
  
• A new chapter on memory, with a comprehensive discussion of the Memory Manager APIs.
  
• Greatly expanded discussions of forms, forms objects, and new APIs for the Palm OS.
  
• Updated chapters on conduits that reflect the newer Conduit Development Kit.
  

The best-selling first edition of this book is still considered the definitive guide for serious Palm programmers; it's used as the basis of Palm's own developer training materials. Our expanded second edition promises to set the standard for the next generation of Palm developers.

Table of Contents

Preface 

Part I. Overview of the Palm OS

1. The Palm Solution

      How Palm Succeeded 

      Elements in the Magic Formula 

      Easy to Carry 

      Inexpensive 

      Expandable 

      Effortlessly Connects to a Desktop Computer 

      Works Great and Is Simple to Use 

      Designing Applications for Palm Devices 

2. Technical Overview and Development Environments

      Palm OS Overview 

      Conduit Overview 

      Handheld Development Environments 

      Alternative Development Environments 

      High-Level Forms Development 

      Handheld Development Recommendations 

      Conduit Development 

3. Designing a Solution

      User Interface Elements in the Palm OS 

      Designing with a Particular User in Mind 

      The Well-Designed Form 

      Other Design Issues 

      How the Sample Applications Are Useful 

      User Interface of the Sales Application 

      Designing the Sales Application 

      Designing the Conduit 

      Design Summary 

Part II. Programming a Palm Application

4. Tutorial

      POSE 

      CodeWarrior 

      PRC-Tools 

      Installing OReilly Sample project 

      Installing a PRC on the Handheld 

      Installing PRC on POSE 

      Modifying the Sample Application 

5. Structure of an Application

      Terminology 

      Palm OS Conventions 

      The Palm OS and an Application 

      A Simple Application-OReilly Starter 

      Other Times Your Application Is Called 

      Examples 

      What to Remember 

6. Memory Manager

      Types of Memory 

      Dynamic Memory Allocation 

      Stack Space 

      Handling Large Amounts of Data 

      Owner IDs 

      Cards and Local IDs 

      Using Memory Effectively 

      MemoryTestAPIs Example 

      What to Remember 

7. Debugging Palm Applications

      POSE 

      Graffiti Debugging Shortcuts 

      Source-Level Debugging 

      Gremlins 

      Error Manager 

      Palm OS Sources 

      Low-Level Debugging with PalmDebugger 

      Device Reset 

      Using Simulator on Mac OS 

      Release/Debug Targets 

8. Resources and Forms

      Resources 

      Form Characteristics 

      Form Events 

      Form-Level APIs 

      Modeless Forms 

      Alerts 

      Modal Dialog Boxes 

      Forms in the Sales Application 

9. Form Objects

      Form Object Characteristics 

      Form Object Events 

      Form Object APIs 

      Types of Form Objects 

      Sales Application Forms and Form Objects 

10. Databases

      Overview of Databases and Records 

      Opening, Creating, and Closing Databases 

      Working with Records 

      Examining Databases in the Sales Sample 

      Summary 

11. Menus

      Menu User Interface 

      Menu Resources 

      Application Code for Menus 

      Adding Menus to the Sample Application 

      Summary 

12. Extras

      Find 

      Exchange 

13. Communications

      Serial Communications 

      TCP/IP Communications 

Part III. Designing Conduits

14. Getting Started with Conduits

      Overview of Conduits 

      Using the Backup Conduit 

      Registering and Unregistering 

      Using Desktop APIs 

      Conduit Entry Points 

      The HotSync Log 

      When the HotSync Button Is Pressed 

      Using Conduit Inspector to Verify Your Conduit 

      Syncing from POSE 

      Creating a Minimal Sales Conduit 

15. Moving Data to and from the Handheld with a Conduit

      Conduit Requirements 

      Where to Store Data 

      Creating, Opening, and Closing Databases 

      Moving Data to the Handheld 

      Moving Data to the Desktop 

      Keeping the HotSync Progress Dialog Box Alive 

      When the HotSync Button Is Pressed 

      Portability Issues 

      The Sales Conduit 

16. Two-Way Syncing

      The Logic of Syncing 

      MFC Conduit Framework 

      Generic Conduit Framework 

      Generic Conduit Classes 

      Using the Wizard to Create a Minimal Generic Conduit 

      Custom File Formats 

      Handling Categories 

      Sales Conduit Based on Generic Conduit 

Part IV. Appendixes

A. Where to Go from Here

B. Sales Source Code

C. PilRC Manual

Index