The documentation available to developers building Symbian applications has improved greatly in the last couple of years. At the same time developer's sites, such as the UIQ Developer Community and Sony Ericsson Developer World, are providing a wealth of material on UIQ 3. Even so, there is a strong demand for books that go behind the documentation; books that explain, based on practical developer experience, how to work with UIQ 3.

Jens Greve says that Sony Ericsson recognized this need about a year ago and as a result put together the funding for a book project. "The goal was to create a book by and for professional UIQ 3 developers," says Jens. "At the same time we wanted to involve as many developers from UIQ Technology and its licensees as possible, to ensure the reader had the best information possible on building UIQ 3 applications."

So a project team was assembled, headed by Mark Wright as the managing editor. Mark is well suited to the role, having been a member of the team that originally specified the UIQ platform. John Holloway was recruited as the lead author. John, CTO of games developer ZingMagic Ltd, has worked extensively with Symbian OS - first during ten years at Psion and then with various third party development companies targeting Symbian OS. The team was then completed with Matthew Hunt and Simon Judge, with support from Symbian Press. Matthew provides technical and developer support to suppliers working with Sony Ericsson and Simon is a freelance mobile software developer with over 20 years IT experience.

The bulk of the book is being written by John and he covers all the basic aspects of building an application. This includes an introduction to the UI components followed by detailed chapters on list boxes, commands and categories, the layout managers and building blocks, views and dialogs, building an application, multimedia, communications, and porting. In addition Simon provided a guide to the development environment and a quick start guide; Symbian Press a chapter on Symbian OS essentials; John, Mark, and Matthew a chapter on Symbian Signed; Matthew a chapter on testing, debugging, and deploying; and Mark rounded the book out with the obligatory introduction and a chapter on UIQ basics.

Interwoven into the project are experts from Sony Ericsson, UIQ, and Symbian Ltd. More recently experts from Motorola have been involved, but not to the same extent. "We have been very keen to get Motorola involved," says Jens. "However, the timing has not allowed them to get as involved, given that much of the work on the book has been going on while they were finalizing the launch of the Motorola Z8. Even so, they have been keen to be involved and we have welcomed that."

"The final printed book will be getting on for 600 pages long," says Mark. "And it is going to be the most comprehensive look at UIQ 3 to date." Mark expects the printed book to be available during the first quarter of 2008.

At this stage UIQ: The Complete Guide looks and sounds like a standard book project: It is being written, will be published, and head to the book stores. However, the project is taking a twist on this conventional approach.

"Developers in emerging economies, such as India and China, often can't afford the cover price of a book that is considered acceptable by developers in Europe or the USA," says Jens. "To address this we will be creating a Chinese translation and issuing that in hard copy at a price point for the Chinese market, in 2008. But, before that we will be making the English version of the entire book available online."

This approach may seem risky. Sales of the printed version may suffer if the content is available free online. "I don't see this dual approach as a risk," says Jens. "We know many developers prefer the convenience of a hardcopy reference they can keep on their desks. So we see the electronic version as complementary. As such it will make the book available to anyone who is interested in UIQ 3 development and cater for individual preferences."

However, the online approach is about more than simply giving access to those who otherwise could not afford the printed version.

"The Internet is changing the way we all interact with knowledge," says Jens. "You just have to look at the success of Wikipedia and the growth of our own developer Wiki. So the online version will, we hope, become a community effort." Initially the book will be available online as static documents, with plans to open it up for contributions from the UIQ developer community during 2008. This will be achieved by making the full text of the book available in a Wiki.

UIQ: The Complete Guide has been written and reviewed by experts, but that takes time. As a result this (and almost any printed book) will eventually lag behind developments in the technology it covers. So how much of the move to "communitize" the book is about overcoming the shortcomings of a typical book project? "If opening the book to the community allows it to be more current, that is a good outcome," says Jens. "However, this move is more about the realization that the best material comes from practical experience; experience that members of the UIQ developer community are getting every day. We expect the book to be a great reference for developers from the day it is published and to become a better reference through community involvement. I expect the community book will grow with UIQ to provide the same great coverage of future versions. At the same time the community book may also form the basis of new hardcopy books. This is a model that has been used before and I believe can be successful in this case too."

The announcement of the community version of UIQ: The Complete Guide will be made formally at the UIQ Fast Track event in Budapest, 29-30 November.

The first downloadable chapter from the book is available from the UIQ Developer Community >>