garmin SDK trial run--internals available

[halmueller]

A few of us on another forum (the Yahoo groups list) were having a discussion as to what altitude is being displayed. I threw together a quick program to try out the Garmin SDK (and incidentally determined that the altitude shown on the QueGPS screen is WRT mean sea level). You can download it at http://www.mobilegeographics.com/downloads/iqTestD.prc

text-only display, freeware, iQue3600 only

[John Bradley]

I was planning to start development on my iQue, and I'm very curious if I could see the source for this?

Regards,
John

[halmueller]

OK, I now have partial source posted at

http://www.mobilegeographics.com/iQue3600/

It uses a lot of my internal libraries/utilities for display and formatting, but this should give you a good idea of what's going on. There's really not much to using the Garmin API, though.

[John Bradley]

Ah!, Thank you kindly, will take a look at it now.

[rwsmith123]

What development platform (compiler, simulator, debugger, etc.) do you use for the palm platform? Is there a free one available? How about info on the internals (os5 api's, file structure, memory structure, etc.). I'd like to start writing code for the iQue myself. I have lots of C and C++ experence, and I've just started doing java. But I haven't done anything for the palm.

[halmueller]

I use Codewarrior (PalmOS) running on a Mac, and POSE (the emulator from Palmsource, not the same as the OS 5 simulator). Since Metrowerks has dropped Mac support for this product, I'll probably be moving to PRC tools soon (based on the GNU toolchain). For UI design I use Constructor (GUI based), but many serious developers prefer PilRC (text based). If I were starting over today I'd use PilRC and skip Constructor. Falch.net has a well-liked IDE based on PRC Tools.

You'll also need to sign up in the Palmsource dev program to get access to ROM images (needed for POSE) and other goodies like source code for the OS.

The Neil Rhodes/Julie McKeehan that O'Reilly publishes is the best beginner's intro.

http://www.palmsource.com/developers/ has a good overview.

As for OS 5 specifics, I suggest you not bother at first. Instead, target your apps for OS 3.5 or OS 4. You can then use POSE, which is a far far superior tool for development to the Simulator. POSE is much more stable, finds more bugs, emulates more platforms, and has more useful features than the Simulator does. Once your app runs fine under OS 4, then add support for the OS 5 features, and test on the Simulator or an actual device.

When you write conduits, you need either Visual Studio (for Windows conduits) or Codewarrior for Mac (for Mac conduits). You can't write Mac conduits in Cocoa.

[rwsmith123]

Thanks for the pointers.