How to display a system modal dialog on Symbian or Windows Mobile?

October 19, 2006 10:20 AM

I'm interested in displaying a system modal dialog on a Symbian S60/UIQ and/or a Windows Mobile device.

The idea is to display a dialog which the user cannot switch from until a selection is made or some text is entered.
I haven't had any luck so far with the various SDK documentation, so any clues would be most appreciated.

--Ofer.

posted by oferhalevi to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

If you've tried the associated forums for developing UIQ/WM, try e-mailing a developer that has an app that does what you want.
posted by mphuie at 12:28 PM on October 19, 2006

At least on Symbian 9.1 (UIQ3 and S60 3:ed) this is impossible - a user application is not allowed to disturb the normal workings of the phone in any way. See e.g. the test criteria for how an application is supposed to behave. (This is the criteria an application have to fullfill to be signed, and all applications have to be signed. These criteria can be ignored during development, but then you are limited to one phone at a time).

Earlier symbian versions does not require signing, so in those cases there might be some way to fake it (move the application to front if the user switches to another app, ignore requests to kill the app, etc.). I'm not sure there is a foolproof way of doing it though (the idea is that a user should always be able to use the phone for making and receiving calls, regardless of what user applications are doing.)
posted by rpn at 1:46 PM on October 19, 2006

I'm fairly certain that this isn't possible for the reasons that rpn gave - but will have a chat to our developers and report back.
posted by blag at 3:54 AM on October 20, 2006