When it comes to upgrading software the world seems to be broadly divided into two camps: Those who upgrade to the latest and greatest as soon as it becomes available and those who wait until the early birds have finished the product’s testing. Judging by the feedback comments on the Carbide.c++ page and blog traffic Symbian developers live up to this generalisation, as those who had not updated their copy of Carbide.c++ have run into issues with the expiration of the license keys in Carbide.c++ 2.0.
When Carbide.c++ 2.0 was release it became free to all. However, the licensing software was not removed and the IDE shipped with “free” license for its various versions. These keys expired at the end of 2009, leaving some developer in the lurch. For those preferring to upgrade at their own pace, Forum Nokia issued temporary license keys.
Hover help is a new feature developers upgrading from 2.0 will encounter.
Developers taking this opportunity to update from 2.0 will find a number of changes:
- Support for the Eclipse p2 provisioning tool. p2 replaces the update manager and simplifies the installation and management of Eclipse plug-ins, such as Carbide.c++.
- Support for Qt development with integrated Qt developer tools and the ability to apply Qt code styling in the Carbide.c++ editor.
- Support for Symbian Build System (SBS) v2 (aka Raptor) for SBSv2-enabled developer kits. Carbide.c++ now enables SBSv2 single file compiles also.
- Several performance improvements, such as:
- Significantly faster importing of very large projects.
- More responsive Indexer, achieved through smarter placement of the project root.
- Improved response in the Executable view and when re-opening large workspaces.
- Hover Help – placing the mouse pointer over a recognised Symbian symbol in an editor displays the Symbian API Reference information.
- Carbide.c++ News Reader – the latest news about Carbide.c++ and Symbian, including information on tools updates and screencasts about Carbide.c++ development, is now available directly from the Carbide.c++ interface.
The next version of Carbide.c++ (2.4) is in beta testing and could be released soon. This version will bring support for up to 50 concurrent builds and further improvement to support for Qt applications development. 2.4 will only be available through the p2 update process, so upgrading to 2.3 is a must.
Beyond that there will be a 2.5 release, with further Qt related improvements and support for new ARM RVCT 4.0 compiler, again only available through p2.
By the middle of the year Carbide.c++ will gain a version 3.0 (which should be available as a full installer). This will bring changes to the debugger, more Qt related improvements, tools for capturing or sharing the development environment, and tools to discover SDKs. This version is expected to enter beta testing during March.
Get Carbide.c++ 2.3 from Forum Nokia »