Installing Qt for the Symbian Platform

Qt SDK provides all the necessary tools and libraries for developing Qt applications. However, if you want to build Qt itself for Symbian, follow the instructions below.

Qt for the Symbian platform has some requirements that are given in more detail in the Qt for the Symbian platform Requirements document.

This document describes how to install and configure Qt for the Symbian platform from scratch.

Step 1: Set Up the Development Environment

Make sure your Symbian development environment is correctly installed and patched as explained in the Qt for the Symbian platform Requirements document.

After you have finished the Symbian development environment setup, it is good to verify that environment is functional for example by compiling one of the pure Symbian examples for both emulator and HW. This can be done from command prompt as follows:

 cd <Your SDK path>\S60CppExamples\Note\group
 bldmake bldfiles
 abld build winscw udeb
 abld build gcce urel

If all steps pass without errors your Symbian development environment is very likely installed correctly.

Step 2: Install Qt

Uncompress the downloaded source package into the directory you want Qt installed, e.g. C:\Qt\4.8.7.

Note: Qt must be installed on the same drive as the Symbian SDK you are using, and the install path must not contain any spaces.

Step 3: Set the Environment variables

In order to build and use Qt, the PATH environment variable needs to be extended:

 PATH               - to locate qmake, moc and other Qt tools

This is done by adding c:\Qt\4.8.7\bin to the PATH variable.

On Windows thePATH can be extended by navigating to "Control Panel->System->Advanced->Environment variables".

In addition, you must configure the environment for use with the Symbian emulator. This is done by locating the Carbide.c++ submenu on the Start menu, and choosing "Configure environment for WINSCW command line".

If you are planning to use abld (the default build system that comes with the S60 SDK) to build Qt, you will also need to set the following environment variable:

 SYMBIANBUILD_DEPENDENCYOFF=1

This is not necessary for other applications, only when building Qt.

Step 4: Configure Qt

To configure Qt for the Symbian platform, do:

 cd \Qt\4.8.7
 configure -platform win32-g++ -xplatform symbian-abld

(to build the tools using MinGW, and the libraries using abld)

 cd \Qt\4.8.7
 configure -platform win32-g++ -xplatform symbian-sbsv2

(to build the tools using MinGW, and the libraries using SBSv2)

Type ./configure -help to get a list of all available options. The Configuration Options for Qt page gives a brief overview of these.

SBSv2 (also known as Raptor) is a next-generation Symbian build system. SBSv2 is not officially supported by any of the S60 SDKs currently available from Forum Nokia.

Step 5: Build Qt

To build Qt for the emulator, type:

 make debug-winscw

To build Qt for the device, type:

 make release-armv5

Congratulations, Qt is now ready to use.

Step 7: Installing Qt Libraries on the Device

To run a Qt application on a device, it must have Qt libraries installed.

Symbian devices have a pre-installed Qt as follows:

Symbian Anna devices have the pre-installed Qt, Qt Mobility, and Qt Webkit.
Symbian Belle and later devices have the pre-installed Qt on the device firmware.

Nokia Smart Installer for Symbian deploys the required Qt libraries to supported S60 and Symbian devices if the libraries are not pre-installed.

Nokia Developer site's Device specifications provide information on which devices have a pre-installed Qt and the used Qt version.

To create your own Qt installation package, do as follows:

 cd src\s60installs
 make sis QT_SIS_OPTIONS=-i QT_SIS_CERTIFICATE=<certificate file> QT_SIS_KEY=<certificate key file>
 cd ..\3rdparty\webkit\WebCore
 make sis QT_SIS_OPTIONS=-i QT_SIS_CERTIFICATE=<certificate file> QT_SIS_KEY=<certificate key file>

The Qt libraries are built with "All -Tcb" capability, so they can support all types of applications. If you don't have a suitable certificate, you can patch the binaries in either of the following ways:

If you have no certificate, build a self-signed Qt:

 cd src\s60installs
 make sis QT_SIS_OPTIONS=-i
 cd ..\3rdparty\webkit\WebCore
 make sis QT_SIS_OPTIONS=-i

If you have a symbian-signed developer certificate, specify the capabilities you can sign for, for example:

 cd src\s60installs
 patch_capabilities.pl Qt_template.pkg release-armv5 "ALL -Tcb -AllFiles -DRM"
 make sis QT_SIS_OPTIONS=-i QT_SIS_CERTIFICATE=<certificate file> QT_SIS_KEY=<certificate key file>
 cd ..\3rdparty\webkit\WebCore
 patch_capabilities.pl QtWebKit_template.pkg release-armv5 "ALL -Tcb -AllFiles -DRM"
 make sis QT_SIS_OPTIONS=-i QT_SIS_CERTIFICATE=<certificate file> QT_SIS_KEY=<certificate key file>

Running Qt demos

We've included a subset of the Qt demos in this package for you to try out. An excellent starting point is the "fluidlauncher" demo.

Similarly, install fluidlauncher to the device:

 cd demos\embedded\fluidlauncher
 make sis QT_SIS_OPTIONS=-i

This will create a self-signed fluidlauncher.sis and install it to your device.

To run the demos on the emulator simply navigate to the directory of the demo you want to see and run:

 make run

For more information about building and running Qt programs on the Symbian platform, see The Symbian platform - Introduction to Qt. We hope you will enjoy using Qt.

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