Defining localizable registration information

You need to register your applications in order to make them visible to the application menu and to provide other information to the underlying system. To register, you need to provide a registration resource file that contains the non-localized information for your application. You also need to provide the localizable registration information. The registration resource file is compiled during the build process and included in the pkg package file used to make the sis installation file.

Localizable registration information is defined in a LOCALISABLE_APP_INFO resource statement, which may be in a separate file or in the resource file for the GUI resources. For a discussion of the available options for where you can place this resource statement, see Localisable icon/caption definition files in the Symbian OS Library.

To define the localizable registration information:

  1. Determine the requirements of your application, including deciding on whether the resource statement should be in its own file or part of the GUI resource file.

  2. Create a LOCALISABLE_APP_INFO resource. The data structure is declared in the appinfo.rh file in the ./epoc32/include folder, as is the CAPTION_AND_ICON_INFO structure used in the resource. The syntax is as follows:

    RESOURCE  LOCALISABLE_APP_INFO r_name36
    	{
    	short_caption = "";
    	CAPTION_AND_ICON_INFO
            {
            caption = "";
            number_of_icons =0;
    	   	icon_file = "";
    	    };
    	view_list[]; // VIEW_DATA
    	group_name(KAppMaxGroupName) = "";
    	}

    where

    • r_name36 is the resource name that uniquely identifies this RESOURCE statement in the application, and is used in the registration resource file

    • short_caption indicates a shortened version of the caption used by some UIs when screen space is limited

    • caption indicates the caption used for the application on the grid and list menu.

    • number_of_icons indicates the number of icons used for the application in the menu

    • icon_file indicates the name of the file that contains the icon, including the path but not the drive name

    For information on the other possible values, see Localisable icon/caption definition files in the Symbian OS Library.

  3. Add the resource name of this resource to the localisable_resource_id in the registration resource file.

For a commented example, see helloworldbasic.rss.