Getting Started

You’ll find everything you need to get started in developing Palm webOS applications at webOSdev, the Palm developer site (http://developer.palm.com). You’ll need to sign up as a Palm developer and download the SDK. There are options for Mac OS X, Windows XP/Vista, and Linux, so download the SDK package that matches your development platform and run the installer.

The installation will put a copy of the SDK, including the Palm Mojo framework and Palm development tools, into one of the project directories listed in Table 2-1.

Table 2-1. SDK installation directories

Platform

Location

Mac OS X

/opt/PalmSDK/Current/

Windows XP/Vista

C:\Program Files\Palm\SDK

Linux

/opt/PalmSDK/Current

The installer will give you the option of installing different tool bundles. The tools package includes a collection of command-line tools which can be run on all platforms. In addition, the tools have been integrated into some popular IDEs and web development editors. Check the developer portal for an up-to-date list of bundles and supported editors.

The application samples in this book were all developed on a Mac with TextMate and the command-line tools. The command-line option for the tools will be shown in the examples and is the same on every platform. If you are using Eclipse/Aptana or another tool bundle, there should generally be direct menu options for the commands used in the book. In some cases, several commands may be combined into one menu option.

Creating Your Application

Palm webOS ...

Get Palm webOS now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.