Appendix: What's New

This chapter describes what's new and changed in the Photon Programmer's Guide.

• What's new in Photon for QNX Neutrino 6.4.1
• What's new in Photon for QNX Neutrino 6.4
• What's new in Photon for QNX Neutrino 6.3
• What's new in Photon for QNX Neutrino 6.2.1
• What's new in Photon for QNX Neutrino 6.2.0
• What's new in Photon for QNX Neutrino 6.0

What's new in Photon for QNX Neutrino 6.4.1

New content

• The Understanding Encodings, Fonts, Languages and Code Tables chapter has been added to help answer some common misconceptions about fonts and encodings.
• The language code table in the International Language Support chapter has been updated.

What's new in Photon for QNX Neutrino 6.4

New content

• The Photon graphics architecture on embedded systems has changed. For more information, refer to the io-display utility chapter in the Neutrino Utilities Reference for more information.
• The Photon in Embedded Systems appendix describes how to use the io-display utility to embed photon on an embedded device. When you want to run both GF/OpenGL ES and Photon applications, you must start io-display before starting the Photon graphics server, io-graphics.
• The Fonts chapter has been updated to describe how fonts are handled under the io-display graphics framework.
• The Widgets chapter contains a paragraph that describes how to use Shift-drag to move a widget by its resize handle. This is new functionality for 6.4.

For information on migrating from previous versions of QNX Neutrino, refer to the product release notes.

What's new in Photon for QNX Neutrino 6.3

New content

• The PhAB's Environment — PhAB's interface has changed, including an updated menu and simplified toolbar.
• The Geometry Management chapter now describes how to use layouts to manage widget placement.
• The directory structure for PhAB projects has changed, and is described in How application files are organized.
• The Generating, Compiling and Running Code chapter now describes how you can Manage targets.
• The Raw Drawing and Animation chapter now describes how you can use layers.
• The Fonts chapter is updated with information about the new font library.
• The Photon in Embedded Systems appendix has a new example of creating a floppy containing Photon and some applications, and is updated with new font library information pertinent to embedded systems.

What's new in Photon for QNX Neutrino 6.2.1

New content

• Listed the supported platforms; see “Versions and platforms” in the Introduction.
• The Interprocess Communication chapter has a better description of how to use Photon connections.
• There's a new section, “Layers,” in the Raw Drawing and Animation chapter.
• Added a description of the PHINDOWSOPTS environment variable to the Using PhAB under Microsoft Windows appendix.

Errata

• The libraries in /usr/photon/lib are provided for runtime compatibility with Photon for QNX Neutrino 6.0 (x86 only). The current libraries are in /usr/lib. For more information about the libraries, see “Photon libraries” in the Introduction.
• Corrected the call to ionotify() in “Sending the pulse message to the deliverer” in the Interprocess Communication chapter.
• The instructions for printing a PtMultiText widget have been corrected.
• The order of the options to the on command have been corrected in “Putting it all together” in the Photon in Embedded Systems appendix.
• If you want to use a graphical debugger when developing in Windows, use the IDE that's part of QNX Momentics.

What's new in Photon for QNX Neutrino 6.2.0

New content

• The Edit menu now includes Undo and Redo commands. For more information, see the chapter on PhAB's Environment.
• PhAB can't import QNX Windows picture files any more.
• You can now specify a list of library callback functions when you start PhAB. For more information, see appbuilder in the QNX Neutrino Utilities Reference.
• “Making a DLL out of a PhAB application” in the Generating, Compiling, and Running Code chapter
• “Widget styles” in the Managing Widgets in Application Code chapter
• “Offscreen locks” in the Raw Drawing and Animation chapter.
• Using PhAB under Microsoft Windows appendix

What's new in Photon for QNX Neutrino 6.0

This section doesn't try to describe all the changes to PhAB's user interface; most you'll discover by trying it yourself or by scanning this manual. Instead, this section lists only the major changes.

The changes are listed below by chapter:

• Introduction
• PhAB's Environment
• Working with Applications
• Working with Modules
• Creating Widgets in PhAB
• Geometry Management
• Working with Code
• Manipulating Resources in Application Code
• Managing Widgets in Application Code
• Context-Sensitive Help
• Interprocess Communication
• Parallel Operations
• Raw Drawing and Animation
• Fonts
• Printing
• Drag and Drop
• Events

Introduction

• The geometry of a widget has changed slightly; it now includes the widget's border. For more information, see “Widget geometry.”

PhAB's Environment

• You no longer need to press Enter after giving an instance name to a widget.

Working with Applications

• It's no longer possible to override the standard Photon mainloop function.

Working with Modules

• PtWindow widgets (which are used to instantiate Window modules) no longer include an icon resource. You must now use PhAB to associate an icon with the window.
• You can no longer create “other” modules (file selectors or messages) in PhAB, although they're still supported for existing applications. Instead of the file selector, use one of:
  • PtFileSel
  • PtFileSelection()

  Instead of the message module, use one of:

  • PtAlert()
  • PtMessageBox()
  • PtNotice()
  • PtPrompt()

  For more information, see the Photon Library Reference.

Creating Widgets in PhAB

• You can now create templates, or customized widgets, to use as the basis when creating other widgets.

Geometry Management

• In the current version of the Photon microGUI, widgets are anchored immediately upon creation. In earlier versions, anchoring is done when the widgets are realized.
• If the resize policy conflicts with the anchors, the Pt_ARG_RESIZE_FLAGS override Pt_ARG_ANCHOR_OFFSETS and Pt_ARG_ANCHOR_FLAGS.

Working with Code

New sections:

• Timers

Manipulating Resources in Application Code

New sections:

• Setting image resources
• Setting one resource
• Getting image resources (pointer method)
• Getting one resource

Other changes:

• When setting string resources, the fourth argument to PtSetArg() is the number of bytes to copy; if it's 0, strlen() is used to determine the length of the string.
• Changes to the widget's state may invalidate the pointers returned by PtGetResources(); use them promptly.

Managing Widgets in Application Code

New sections:

• Ordering widgets

Context-Sensitive Help

• The PxHelp* functions are now named PtHelp* and are in the main Photon library, ph.

Interprocess Communication

New sections:

• Connections — the best method of IPC for Photon applications.

Other changes:

• As described in “Adding an input handler,” an input handler must return one of the following:

  Pt_CONTINUE

  The input handler doesn't recognize the message. If there are other input handlers attached to the same process ID, they're called. If there are no input handlers attached specifically to this process ID, or if all input handlers attached specifically to this process ID return Pt_CONTINUE, the library looks for input handlers attached to pid 0. If all the input handlers return Pt_CONTINUE, the library replies to the message with an ENOSYS.

  Pt_END

  The message has been recognized and processed and the input handler needs to be removed from the list. No other input handlers are called for this message.

  Pt_HALT

  The message has been recognized and processed but the input handler needs to stay on the list. No other input handlers are called for this message.

  This creates several incompatibilities with earlier versions of the Photon microGUI:

  • If an input handler replies to the message and returns Pt_CONTINUE (or if the message is from a proxy/pulse), everything should be OK. The current library tries and fails to reply again, but that's harmless. Still, it's a good idea to change the code to return Pt_HALT; this prevents the library from calling other input handlers or replying.
  • If an input handler returns Pt_CONTINUE without replying to the message, the old library doesn't reply either, but the current one does. You need to change the code to return Pt_HALT.
  • If an input handler returns Pt_END (which is the most obvious value other than Pt_CONTINUE), the only situation that can cause a problem is when you have multiple input handlers attached to the same process ID.
  • If an input handler returns a value other than Pt_CONTINUE or Pt_END, the old library removes it from the list but the new library doesn't. You need to change the code to return Pt_END.

Parallel Operations

New sections:

• Threads

Raw Drawing and Animation

New sections:

• Direct mode
• Video memory offscreen
• Alpha blending support
• Chroma key support
• Extended raster operations
• Video modes
• Gradients

Other changes:

• If you use PxLoadImage() to load an transparent image, set PX_TRANSPARENT in the flags member of the PxMethods_t structure. If you do this, the function automatically makes the image transparent; you don't need to create a transparency mask. See “Transparency in images.”

Fonts

New chapter.

Printing

The entire API has been made simpler. Applications that call the old routines should still work, but you should reread this chapter.

Drag and Drop

New chapter.

Events

New sections:

• Pointer events
• Event handlers