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