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Your First App

Contents

  1. Your First App
    1. Launch Sailfish IDE
    2. Create a Sailfish UI Project
    3. Launch the Build Engine and the Emulator
      1. Successful connection
    4. Create a Connection to Sailfish OS Hardware Device
    5. Set ARM Kit to Deploy to Device
    6. Build and Deploy the App
      1. Build RPM Package for Manual Deployment

Your First App

If you don’t have the SDK installed and running yet, follow the installation guide.

Launch Sailfish IDE

You can launch from the ‘Sailfish IDE’ entry in the system menu (or from ~/SailfishOS/bin/qtcreator if you’re a Linux terminal person).

As an example, on Ubuntu, open the dash, type in ‘sailfish’. Click on the ‘Sailfish IDE’ icon to launch the IDE.

Ubuntu_dash_QtC.png

Create a Sailfish UI Project

The SDK comes with a Sailfish UI template project that makes it very easy to get started.

1. In the IDE, click on File→New File or Project.

QtC_New_Project.png

2. Select Applications→Sailfish OS Qt Quick Application and then click Choose.

QtC_Choose_Template.png

3. Give a name to your project. Ensure it is created somewhere under your home directory and click Next.

QtC_Template_01.png

4. You can edit the short description of your project or just click Next.

QtC_Template_03.png

5. Select a build system. The default (qmake) is a good choice, but we do support CMake as well, so if you are more familiar with it you may want to try it instead.

Buildsystem.png

6. Select the kit(s) used for building the project. Select SailfishOS-<version>-armv7hl for 32-bit ARM devices, SailfishOS-<version>-aarch64 for 64-bit ARM devices (e.g. Sony Xperia 10 II) or SailfishOS-<version>-i486 for the emulator.

Kits.png

6. Click Finish.

QtC_Template_04.png

7. The project template is imported into your project and opened in the editor.

QtC_Open_Project.png

Launch the Build Engine and the Emulator

The Sailfish SDK uses a build engine (virtual machine or Docker container) to compile your code and another virtual machine to run an emulator. If these are not running when you attempt to build or deploy an application you will be asked to start them.

Note: The Build Engine needs access to your source code to compile it and by default your home directory is shared – this is why the project should be in your home.

When a Sailfish OS project is open, the SDK automatically displays two control buttons in the left toolbar for starting/stopping the Build Engine and Emulator.

Toolbar_Icons.png

  1. Click on the Build_Engine_Icon.png icon to launch the Build Engine.
    The Build Engine is started in the background and the icon will turn gray until the build engine has booted up.

  2. Click on the Emulator_Icon.png icon to launch the emulator.
    NOTE: This icon is only available if the SailfishOS-<version>-i486 kit is active. You can activate the SailfishOS-<version>-i486 kit from menu Build → Open Build and Run Kit Selector….

A new VirtualBox window opens and boots up the emulator.

Successful connection

When the Qt Creator can successfully connect to both the Emulator and the Build Engine, the icons are updated as shown below.

Before connection:

Connection established:

Create a Connection to Sailfish OS Hardware Device

Sailfish SDK can also deploy application to Sailfish OS hardware device. This feature requires a valid Sailfish OS hardware device to be set-up with USB or WLAN connection to computer and making sure that it is possible to connect to it over SSH with password. When using Sailfish OS hardware device as development device in SDK a valid kit needs to be selected (such as SailfishOS-armv7hl target).

Sailfish OS hardware device setup is done using Qt Creator’s device settings. Depending on your host environment this is found from either the menu Tools→Options→Devices or Qt Creator→Preferences→Devices. In this settings view, click Add… to start creating device settings.

Unless some custom configuration is used, these default values work just fine. If you encounter timeouts with SSH connections on your PC, you can modify the timeout setting also after the device has been created. Connect the device now, enter your SSH password and press Test Connection as described in the dialog. On successful completion, you can click Next to continue.

HW_Select.png

In the next dialog, you can review and further adjust connection related configuration. Click Next to continue.

HW_Configure.png

In next dialog just click Next unless you want to abort device creation. In that case click Cancel.

Qt Creator shall then create device configuration, deploy the SSH key to device and finally test the setup. In those dialogs user can only click Close to go to next phase.

Once tested and verified, Qt Creator shows a view which shows the created device. Notice that configuration files are not updated yet, so if you don’t press OK or Apply changes will not be saved.

That’s it. Now Qt Creator can deploy your application to device.

Set ARM Kit to Deploy to Device

By default ARM kit will create RPM binaries, it won’t even try to deploy to device. The deploy option Build RPM Package for Manual Deployment is selected. This can be changed from Qt Creator’s main view with deploy options, select Deploy as RPM Package or Deploy by Copying Binaries.

ARM_Kit_Select_Deploy.png

Congratulations! Now you can build and deploy to Sailfish ARM device.

Build and Deploy the App

Press the QtC_Run_Button.png button in the toolbar to compile and run the project on the emulator.

That’s it! You just ran your first Sailfish OS application. It should be running in the emulator as shown below.

Emulator_Screenshot_01.png

Build RPM Package for Manual Deployment

The default deploy option is to only build RPM packages. In this case the Run and Debug buttons are replaced with single Deploy button, that can be used to create the RPM packages. Alternatively the menu Build → Deploy Project “projectname” can be used to trigger package creation.

Next steps: exploring how to use the application.