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BlackBerry 10
This document describes the porting progress of modRana & related applications (Mieru, RePho, Panora) to the BlackBerry 10 operating system.
The information also of course applies to porting any other Python based application to BB10. :)
This is a work in progress - if you find some errors & or missing information, let me know so I can fix it! :)
Dependencies
What needs to be available for modRana to run.
Python
Python is available on-device in version 3.2.
ModRana has not yet been tested running on Python 3, but any changes that would be needed should be fairly minor.
Qt
Qt is available either on-device or a custom Qt version can be compiled & deployed.
Related links:
Qt@QNX overview (BB10 is based on QNX)
Building Qt4 for BB10
Weather the on-device Qt version can be used, or custom Qt version needs to be used to run modRana still needs to be determined. If using the on-device version is possible, the resulting installation package would be quite a bit smaller as the Qt libraries would not need to be included.
Making sure the right Qt is used
By default (when just running the bbndk environment script before build), Shiboken & PySide pick-up the Qt libraries that are included in the BB10NDK target, completely ignoring your local Qt build.
If you want for both Shiboken & PySide? to use the proper build, you need to modify PATH & LD_LIBRARY_PATH so that it is preferred to the one in the BB10NDK target:
source <BB10NDK PATH>/bbndk-env.sh export QTDIR=<PATH TO YOUR CUSTOM Qt BUILD> export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$QTDIR/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH" export PATH="$QTDIR/bin:$PATH"
You need to either run this in your shell (or put it in a script source it to your shell) before issuing the configure commands for Shiboken & PySide.
PySide
the few changes to the guide that are needed for the whole thing to compile, are described below.
Building Shiboken
comment out tests in these files on around these line numbers:
/usr/share/cmake-2.8/Modules/CMakeTestCXXCompiler.cmake :45 /usr/share/cmake-2.8/Modules/CMakeTestCCompiler.cmake :52
Yeah, really - this means modifying you system installation of CMAKE - make sure to have a backup ! :)
Creating a package If you are getting icon related errors during package installation, ad these argument to the packager:
-e icon.png icon.png
Qt Components
While the modRana QML GUI is largely independent on Qt Components, working set of Qt Components would simplify porting quite a lot. Also other applications, such as Mieru, currently depend on functioning Qt Components.
Symbian Qt Components
https://qt.gitorious.org/~conny/qt-components/connys-qt-components/commits/bb10
Should compile using these parameters:
./configure -symbian -no-mobility -nomake tests -nomake demos -nomake example
MeeGo/Harmattan Qt Components
Looks like MeeGo/Harmattan Qt Components should also work with some tweaks & would be the preferred choice, considering that is what modRana & co are currently using.
Links:
http://zwong.de/2012/06/using-meego-qt-components-on-blackberry-10-and-playbook/
http://supportforums.blackberry.com/t5/Native-Development/qt-components-for-BB10/td-p/1798349
Packaging
Getting the debug token
To install correctly to the BB10 device, the package needs to be signed with a valid debug token.
- source the bbndk-env.sh script to your shell, so that you have the various BlackBerry? utilities in your $PATH
source bbndk-env.sh
- fill in the online form for signing keys
Note the PIN you've entered somewhere.
- generate a keypair
NOTE: This step is very important, as it is completely omitted in the official BB10 documentation and without it the debug token generation will fail with a author.p12 file missing error
NOTE2: use only lowercase letters and numbers in the store password as reportedly uppercase letters cause problems.
blackberry-keytool -genkeypair -storepass <new keystore password>3 -author <some string without spaces>
- register the signing keys
blackberry-debugtokenrequest -register -csjpin <the pin you entered to the online form> -cskpass <probably also the pin you entered to the online form> client-RDK-*.csj
The following is probably only needed for the Playbook ?
blackberry-debugtokenrequest -register -csjpin <the pin you entered to the online form> -cskpass <probably also the pin you entered to the online form> client-PBDT-*.csj
- find you device PIN
Should be visible on-device in settings->About->Harware
- generate the debug token
blackberry-debugtokenrequest -storepass <the keystore password you've entered in step 3> -devicepin <device PIN> debug_token.bar
The debug_token.bar file now contains the debug token you can use to build packages (just for) your BB10 device. Plain and easy, not needlessly convoluted at all. :)
Package contents
The package needs to contain the application and any other libraries modRana needs to run. The libraries are stored in the folder the application gets installed into and are loaded by manipulating the PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH variables.
For modRana the package would contain the modRana application files, the PySide Qt bindings and Qt (if the built-in Qt install can't be used).
Mieru will probably need a BB10 compiled unrar binary to correctly open RAR compressed manga/comic book files.
BB-Py packaging tutorial:
http://hg.microcode.ca/blackberry-py/wiki/Building%20HelloWorld
Application not starting
The application is not starting at the moment - a black window shows up and then closes at once.
This is the content of the log file from the logs folder:
Process 30396593 (python3.2) terminated SIGSEGV code=1 fltno=11 ip=783abf7c(/base/lib/libcpp.so.4@_ZNKSt6locale9_GetfacetEj+0x27) mapaddr=0002bf7c. ref=00000010
Notes
Where are applications installed ?
Applications are installed - in paths like this:
/accounts/1000/appdata/ca.microcode.bbpy.HelloWorld.testDev__HelloWorld7b0107f8/app/python/blackberry-py/
Filesystem access
Each application is basically running in some sort of sandbox. There are various folders that that can be used for various purposes by the application. Some of them are only visible by the application and others are shared between applications and can be used to exchange data.
For more information see the BB10 filesystem access article.
Running applications from the command line
It looks like it is not possible to run applications directly from the command line. But it is possible to run an application right after its package is installed through the command-line installation tool.
Debugging
Applications are started in a sandbox with some preade folder structure. The folder called log in the sandbox contains stdout for the program.
Checking out the log
(The path seems to partially random-generated, so don't forget to change it to the path corresponding to you application).
cd /accounts/1000/appdata/ca.microcode.bbpy.HelloWorld.testDev__HelloWorld7b0107f8/ $ ls app data db logs pps shared tmp
The logs folder contains the logs.
Shared log folder If you don't want to fish for the log folder, you con redirect stdout to a log file in the data/Downloads folder, which should be accessible for all applications.
Helpful commands
Pack, install and run:
blackberry-pythonpackager -package HelloWorld.bar -devMode -env PYTHONPATH=app/python/blackberry-py bar-descriptor.xml main.py main.qml -e ../icon.png icon.png -e ../blackberry-py/ blackberry-py/ -debugToken ~/token.bar -device 192.168.1.8 -password super_secret_password -launchApp -list -installApp
Deploy package:
blackberry-deploy -installApp 192.168.1.8 -password super_secret_password -package HelloWorld.bar