So I patiently downloaded the whopping 250 MB "Palm OS Developer Suite", skimmed
through the docs, ran my apps in the PalmSim 6, looked at some samples and frankly,
I'm shocked. I've been programming Palm OS for 7 years now, but I can't remember such
a radical change. There seems to be no attempt at compatibility, neither binary nor in
source.
A Protein app created for OS 6 will not run on OS 5 and earlier. Classic 68k apps may
run on OS 6 but cannot access any of the new features of OS 6. PACE in OS 6 "provides
no additional functionality beyond that provided by earlier releases of Palm OS."
(porting guide)
This means there is no longer a way to support all Palm OS releases in a single prc
file:
When I want/need to use only one single new feature of OS 6, I'll have to split
projects, and create and maintain a separate code line. Given the fact that PalmSource
openly admits that OS 5 and OS 6 will coexist for some time in the future, this means
double maintenance, seperate downloads, and a support nightmare. Not to mention user
confusion ("is my Tungsten running Cobalt?").
After stopping support for system patching in OS 5, Palm introduced some new
low-level notifications as a replacement. Now they removed all the interesting ones
again in OS 6 (e.g. sysNotifyEventDequeuedEvent). No hint in the 600 page porting
guide about how to work around this.
It looks like the way to handle dynamic input areas (aka virtual Graffiti area aka
virtual silkscreen) has changed again.
Several functions that PalmSource deemed "rarely used", e.g. EvtGetPenBtnList() or
EvtKeyQueueSize() have just been removed in OS 6. Some others have been renamed,
because it seems they just didn't sound right...
And, apparently just for fun, they've changed all the type names again
(e.g. UInt32 becomes uint32_t).
What do others think?
Andreas
www.LinkeSOFT.com
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