===============================================

Python for S60 2.0.0 RELEASE NOTES, 30.10.2009

===============================================

Product Description

===================

Python for S60 (hereafter PyS60) is intended for developers looking to create

programs that use the native features and resources of the S60 phones, using the

Python programming language.

About this release

==================

This is the new 2.0.0 development release of PyS60. This release is intended

only for S60 3rd edition, S60 3rd edition FP1, S60 3rd edition FP2 and

S60 5th edition devices.

Note on versioning: The versioning scheme in PyS60 releases is such that the

releases with an even minor version (1.0.x, 1.2.x ...) are "stable" and releases

with an odd minor version (1.1.x, 1.3.x ...) are "development" releases. This is

thus a development release, meaning that it includes functionality that has not

been tested as extensively as the stable releases. This release is provided as a

preview to developers who wish to experiment with Python on S60 before the next

final stable release.

What is new when compared with PyS60 1.9.7?

-------------------------------------------

- Repeat support in 4-way directional pad

- appuifw.app.track_allocations can be set if the interpreter should track all

  memory allocations and then free the memory which was not explicitly released

  before application exit. To debug memory leaks in 3rd party extension

  modules set the value to false.

Corrected defects:

------------------

4345 - Missing (platform) functionality on ensymble/Application packager

3935 - appuifw.Icon sample code refers to non-existing file [doc error]

What is new when compared with PyS60 1.9.6?

-------------------------------------------

- Touch support added for GLCanvas UI Control. Directional pad is displayed

  by default on touch enabled devices. A sample application - gles_touch_demo.py

  is added to ScriptShell which demonstrates the functionality.

- Two new APIs are added to canvas - begin_redraw and end_redraw. These can be

  used to instruct the window server to enable redraw drawing on the canvas UI

  control. Please refer the documentation (Section 3.1.10) for more details.

- The multi-selection listbox has been modified such that the dialog

  for the option 'checkmark' now has 'Options' and 'Back' as its left and right

  softkeys respectively. The 'Options' has Mark/Unmark entry that can be used

  to select and de-select respectively. The 'Back' softkey returns the

  current state of the listbox based on the selected items.

- 4-way directional pad support in landscape mode

- Different flavors of Scriptshell application can coexist on the device.

- Scribble application improvements:

  - Performance improvements by using API's begin_redraw and end_redraw.

  - The drawing area is retained between landscape and portrait

    modes as the toolbar shifts to accommodate for this change.

  - Pen width can be selected from a list of predefined values.

- PyS60 document is available online on maemo.garage

  http://pys60.garage.maemo.org/doc/

Corrected defects:

------------------

4251 - The compression type for the dll and exe files for Python is shown

       as Deflate instead of Byte-pair.

4313 - Scrollbar visible afterwards, should not be there

4338 - Multiple lisbox objects decrease scroll performance

4349 - time.mktime() taking too much time to execute

What is new when compared with PyS60 1.9.5?

-------------------------------------------

- Support for a virtual 4-way directional pad is added for Canvas and text

  widgets. This D-Pad is displayed at the bottom of the screen and this

  feauture is enabled by default on touch enabled devices. Currently, this is

  supported only in the portrait mode and landscape support will be available

  in a future release.

  The 'full_max' mode is invalidated by this change and is removed in this

  release.

- The modules in the base runtime is more refined and hence the size of

  application SIS, created using PyS60 Application Packager is reduced.

- A new chapter is added in the PyS60 documentation (Extending and Embedding

  PyS60), that is an end-to-end tutorial for creating 3rd party extention

  modules and distributing them.

Corrected defects:

------------------

3223 - Floating point formatting/parsing routines on this platform are imprecise

4078 - socket.access_points() returns iapid 0 for lots of entries

4106 - Problems exiting standalone apps

4185 - Calendar module returns end time with time zone offset added to Unix time

4186 - Using rollback in calendar module returns error

4198 - Screen orientation remains landscape after exit, while device was

       portrait all the time

4215 - default.py cannot load .pyc files

4216 - sys.exit() doesn't exit Python

What is new when compared with PyS60 1.9.4?

-------------------------------------------

- e32.s60_version_info is now modified to do a dynamic fetch and return of S60

  version information, instead of returning the version information configured

  at the compile time.

- Default heapsize for PyS60 applications is increased to 100k,4M from 4k,1M

- An option "Continue with missing dependencies" is added to packaging tool.

  Enabling this option will display the missing dependencies as warnings and 

  continue with SIS generation. Otherwise the packaging is strict. Missing 

  dependencies are displayed as errors and SIS generation is aborted.

Feature requests:

-----------------

3261 - Add option to convert to bytecode before py2sis

3298 - appuifw listbox now sports a scrollbar

Corrected defects:

------------------

3228 - time.clock() does not work as expected.

3784 - Python shell file listing in reverse alphabetical order

3788 - uninstall_Python script for SDK has a leading \ in path

3934 - appuifw.Icon creates only grey boxes

3938 - Listbox scrolling off-by-one with touch

4006 - Fake selection problem when sliding quickly your fingers over a list

       with two lines per raw (XM 5800)

4007 - Lists with one raw per item are generating a type_error when sliding

       my finger from top to down

4013 - relates to 1.9.4. !! returns wrong S60 OS version number

4016 - ZeroDivisionError running ball.py in 1.9.4

What is new when compared with PyS60 1.9.3?

-------------------------------------------

- A single Nokia signed runtime package which can be installed on all S60 3rd ED

  and above devices is available. The actual size of the runtime is ~1MB, but due

  to the embedded OpenC sis and Platform Service sis, the size is increased to

  2.8MB. The runtime includes only the most essential modules. The Rest of the

  modules are available with the application packager tool.

- Improved version of application packager tool. The PyS60 application packager

  now scans the Python application being packaged and picks up the missing

  Python modules on which the application is dependent and packages them along

  with the application files. Refer Chapter 7. "Module Repository" in the

  PyS60 Documentation for more details.

- Easier runtime deployment: Python runtime and its dependent components can be

  installed by just running any Python application packaged using 1.9.4

  application packager. This feature is available only from S60 3rd edition FP2

  devices onwards and also these devices should have been updated with the

  latest firmware.

- Two new APIs are added to the socket module - access_points() &

  set_default_access_point() which have similar functionality to the APIs

  present in btsocket module.

- Two new APIs are added to e32 module - get_capabilities() and

  has_capabilities(). The former can be used to get the capabilities, the

  application has been signed with, and the latter to check if a given list of

  capabilities is granted to the application or not.

  Note: The capabilities of scriptshell are displayed on startup using the

  get_capabilities() API.

- Added a new mode to appuifw.app.screen - 'full_max' which can be used to

  achieve fullscreen on devices that don't have Left Soft Key and Right Soft

  Key(e.g.: Nokia 5800). Setting the screen to 'full' will translate to

  'large' mode on these devices.

- The prefix to the binaries of 1.9.x to support co-existence with 1.4.x

  runtime, has been changed from '251_' to 'kf_'.

Corrected defects:

------------------

3368: Importing modules under application's private directory fails.

3841: socket vs. btsocket interoperability

What is new when compared with PyS60 1.9.2?

-------------------------------------------

- Touch event support is added to appuifw Canvas. An API is added to appuifw

  module, touch_enabled() for checking if the device supports touch input.

- scribble application developed using PyS60 touch feature is available in the

  installer.

- This release includes a new extension module, scriptext. This is an enabler for

  using S60 Platform Service APIs that were introduced in the S60 5th Edition

  and back ported on S60 3rd edition FP2, from Python. It supports services like

  Application Manager, Calendar, Contacts, Landmarks, Location, Logging,

  Messaging, Media Management, Sensors and Sys Info. Refer scriptext module

  documentation for the usage and the convention for accessing the platform

  Service API interfaces is subjected to change.

- Easier runtime deployment: Python runtime and its dependent components can be

  installed by just running the scriptshell application that comes with 1.9.3

  release. This feature is available only from S60 3rd edition FP2 devices

  onwards and also these devices should have been updated with the latest

  firmware. The easier runtime deployment support will be available with all

  ensymble packaged applications in future releases.

- SSL support for socket is enabled

- Python core is upgraded to 2.5.4

Corrected defects:

------------------

3220: Time and strptime modules fails when the 'Z' format specifier is used

3221: Issue with non-blocking TCP socket

3229: Problem with decimal separator when the phone's locale uses a non dot decimal separator

3388: SSL Client not supported by this Python installation

3631: The packager does not remember the source directory of previous invocation

What is new when compared with PyS60 1.9.1?

-------------------------------------------

- sensor module support for accessing the sensors on the devices that have

  S60 Sensor Framework libraries. This module's API compatibility between 1.9.x

  versions isn't guaranteed until 2.0. It won't be broken without good reason,

  but it can happen. Refer to the sensor-module-specifications.doc available

  from the installer for more details.

- Reduction in the installer size!

  The application packager GUI is now based on Tkinter, hence PyQt setup is

  removed from the windows installer.

- The UID of PythonRuntime has changed from '0xF0201514' to '0xE0201514'

- PyS60 Application Packager is now based on ensymble 0.28

What is new when compared with PyS60 1.9.0?

-------------------------------------------

- Better interpreter startup and sis installation time!

- All the Python files in the runtime sis are compiled into .pyc files and

  included in a zip file. sys.path is updated with the path of this zip file.

  This reduced the interpreter startup time considerably.

- A more generic error message is displayed when trying to load an application

  without the PyS60 Dependencies installed.

- Support for building just a <subsystem> is provided. Refer build, build_emu,

  build_device help of setup.py

- Unlike 1.4.x, a single SDK zip contains both gcce and armv5 link libraries.

  Separate SDK zips are provided for 3rdEd, 3rdEdFP1 and 3rdEdFP2.

- The default mode of ensymble py2sis command is changed to 'pycore'. All

  scripts which refer to pys60 modules socket and calendar should use the new

  names - btsocket and e32calendar to use the S60 functionality in pycore mode.

  Also renamed "Prioritize PyS60 module library" to "1.4.x compatibility mode"

  on the UI of application packager.

Corrected defects:

------------------

3230: Problems with applications packaged with console profile and PyS60 mode.

3317: N70 is included in the supported device list in the Getting Started Guide,

      even though it's a 2ndEdFP2 device

What is new when compared with PyS60 1.4.5?

===========================================

- Python 2.5.1 core, with much better compliance to the standard

  Python than before. Most of the modules in the standard library are

  included - basically almost all that make sense on this platform and

  even some that don't (for regression testing purposes). This

  includes such goodies as the Expat XML parser, ftplib, smtplib,

  urllib2, xmlrpclib, SimpleHTTPServer, cPickle, asyncore and

  especially the much more compliant socket module. Garbage collection

  is enabled, so there is no need to dismantle reference cycles

  anymore.

- The 1.9.1 release improves things with the new all-in-one installer that gives

  you the packaging tool with GUI and a README file, the documentation and the

  SIS files needed for development on Windows platform, in a single package.

  Similarly for Linux/Mac platforms, an all-in-one archive is provided that

  includes all the contents provided by the installer except the GUI for the

  packaging tool.

- Packaging Python applications to SIS files is much easier. The

  user-friendly Ensymble tool is now the official packaging tool, and

  we've made a GUI for it so packaging your application is now just a

  button press away.

- The environment for SIS packaged applications is closer to the

  script shell environment, since the script shell is no longer a

  special case but just a regular application packaged using the

  Ensymble tool. This should make testing your application easier.

- PyS60 extension modules socket and calender are renamed to btsocket and

  e32calender due to the conflicting names with Python core modules. Two

  packaging modes pys60 and pycore have been provided with ensymble tool to

  maintain the compatibility with PyS601.4.x binaries. The existing scripts

  dependent on these extension modules need not be modified if it is packaged

  with pys60 mode.

- SIS packaged applications are now more robust:

  - If the runtime is missing and you try to launch the application, a

    human readable error message is displayed instead of the

    application just failing to start, like before.

  - If the application raises an exception on startup, the traceback

    is printed on the screen instead of the application quitting

    silently.

  - The applications have a default text console just like in the

    script shell environment, so printing text using the print

    statement works the same way in SIS packaged apps and the script

    shell.

- On 3.2 devices, access GPS out of the box without signing hassle!

  Since S60 3.2 devices now permit the Location capability for

  self-signed applications, that capability is now enabled by default

  in the 3.2 builds.

- The UID of Python runtime and PythonScriptShell has changed.

- The script directory of PythonScriptShell is changed from C:\python

  to C:\data\python\

- To support co-existence of 1.4.x and 1.9.1 Python runtimes, the binaries of

  the latter version are prefixed with '251_' and the import hook in site.py is

  modified to look for the renamed binary.

Known issues

============

1. Problem with decimal separator when the phone's locale uses a decimal

   separator other than dot ('.')

2. time.clock() does not work as expected.

3. Exit key does not work as expected when raw_input is pending for applications

   packaged using s60ui profile

4. Importing modules under application's private directory fails.

   A work around for this problem is packaging the modules to a directory under

   \data\python and include this directory path into sys.path before

   importing the modules. Ensymlbe's --extrasdir option can be used to place

   the modules under the required directory.

   For example :

   a)Place default.py in the directory "root\default.py"

   b)Place dependent modules in "root\extras\data\python\

   c)In default.py update the sys path

      import sys

      sys.path.append("c:\\data\\python")

   d)ensymble py2sis root --extrasdir=extras

      where "root" is the directory which contains default.py and "extras"

      directory. "extras" directory contains the required modules under the

      required directory tree.

Refer the "Known Issues" section of the Python documentation for more details.

Feedback

========

Bugs: Bug reports should be submitted via the project Python for S60 Bug

Tracker on garage.maemo.org

https://garage.maemo.org/tracker/?atid=3201&group_id=854&func=browse

Feature Requests: Feature requests should be submitted via the project

Python for S60 Feature Requests Tracker on garage.maemo.org

https://garage.maemo.org/tracker/?atid=3204&group_id=854&func=browse

Refer the "Reporting Bugs" section of the Python documentation for more details.

Changes to standard library modules:

====================================

A brief summary of changes made to Python 2.5.4 source to get it working on

Symbian:

-  Changed the definition of the PyAPI_DATA and all the python header files

   which used the earlier PyAPI_DATA to use its new form as DLL data export is

   not supported on Symbian. A workaround is to have functions that return

   pointers to the data and macros that hide the calls made to these functions.

   This is enabled when the macro EXPORT_DATA_AS_FUNCTIONS is defined.

- To handle recursions causing stack overflows gracefully stack checks are done

  more frequently.

- Disabled creation of byte compiled files when python modules are loaded

- On the Symbian platform a value greater than 1e49 limits the precision to 28

  above which it crashes the interpreter with panic User24. Added a check so

  that OverflowError is raised for values greater than 1e49 with precision

  greater than 28.

- Modified python's core memory APIs so that it defines macros which can

  be used to set custom malloc/realloc/free functions.

- Python regression suite tests for modules that were not supported on Symbian,

  were disabled by adding a platform check in the test itself. Limits were

  reduced in tests which assumed a huge stack was available and were failing

  with stack overflow error.

- Implementation of the Python TLS API on top of the POSIX threads TLS API.

  Also added PyThread_AtExit which provides extension modules to register their

  functions which cleanup resources at thread exit.

- A new exception SymbianError is added which is used to set Symbian errors.

- dynload_shlib is modified to load the function at ordinal 1 which corresponds

  to the init function (Symbian uses ordinal numbers to identify functions).

- The default file system encoding is set to 'utf-8'

- socketmodule is patched to workaround the OpenC bug related to getaddrinfo.

- A separate copy of site.py and pyconfig.h is maintained in Symbian directory

  as the changes done to these files is applicable only to Symbian platform

- The classification of core python modules into builtin and PYDs is specified

  in the modules.cfg file in Symbian\src. This file is parsed by

  module_config_parser.py which generates and modifies the individual extension

  and python dll build files. Minor changes were done to some modules' init

  function and headers to facilitate building them as PYDs.

- To support co-existence of 1.4.x and 1.9.0 Python runtimes, the binaries of

  the latter version are prefixed with '251_' and the import hook in site.py is

  modified to look for the renamed binary.

- Python core files modsupport.c and getargs.c are patched to support va_list's

  structure definition which is defined in gcce.h

Copyright (c) 2004-2009 Nokia Corporation. Nokia and Nokia Connecting People are

registered trademarks of Nokia Corporation.