Microsoft helps Symbian devs move to Windows Phone

Microsoft and Nokia have unveiled a guide to help developers port Symbian apps across to Windows Phone, Nokia's new platform of choice.

The two companies announced in February that Nokia was to wind down its prolific use of Symbian in favour of adopting Microsoft's smartphone operating system. The companies said on Wednesday that tools and guides would make it possible for there to be some continuity for long-time Nokia customers and developers.

"From design consideration to data binding, the porting story addresses many aspects of the process that will be useful to you; the developer," a post on the Windows Team Blog read.

The guide notes that porting apps from Symbian to Windows Phone inevitably requires the rewriting of code, as Symbian apps needed to be written using Qt C++ and JavaScript-based QML, and Windows Phone (WP) apps use C#/VB.ET and XML-based XAML.

"However, the rewriting of code is not that troublesome after all," the guide reads. "In fact, lots of functionality can be implemented in WP using less configuring and less complexity than in Symbian Qt. For support, you can use the WP API Mapping tool that is a handy tool to find out similar purpose classes between Symbian Qt/Qt Quick and Windows Phone."

The guide also suggests many application development models can be reused, "and you can certainly port the business logic".

Symbian Qt has also been added to the Windows Phone API mapping tool so as to "speed up the learning curve to Windows Phone", the blog post explained. The first stage of this mapping takes in the core libraries for Qt 4.7 for Symbian, including QtCore, QtGui, QtLocation, QtNetwork, QtSensors, QtSql, QtXml, QtWebKit, QML Elements and QML Components.

Developers are invited to suggest additional mapping that should be included in the tool, the post stated.

Microsoft is also holding a series of roadshows in an attempt to woo Symbian developers over to Windows Phone. The tour hits London on 10 October.