Tizen 2.3 Alpha Release Notes

Introduction

Welcome to Tizen.

Tizen is an open source, standards-based software platform supported by leading mobile operators, device manufacturers, and chip suppliers for multiple device categories, including smartphones, tablets, netbooks, in-vehicle infotainment devices, and smart TVs.

The Tizen Platform consists of the Web framework (APIs) and core system.

The Tizen Software Development Kit (SDK) is a comprehensive set of tools for developing Web applications and the platform component for Tizen. The SDK contains an install manager, IDE, tools, documents, samples, and a platform image.

Tizen Platform

This is the first release for Tizen Wearable profile.

Web framework

Provides a complete implementation of the Web API optimized for wearable devices. It includes WebKit, a layout engine designed to enable web browsers to render web pages. It also provides a runtime for web applications. Its features include:

  • W3C/HTML5 specifications support:

    • DOM/Media/Graphics: HTML5 audio/video element, HTML5 Forms (Partial), Session History API, DOM/JS related HTML5 Enhancements, iframe sandbox attribute, HTML5 2D Canvas
    • CSS3: CSS3 2D Transforms (H/W Accelerated), CSS3 3D Transforms (H/W Accelerated), CSS3 Animations (H/W Accelerated), CSS3 Transitions (H/W Accelerated), CSS3 Colors, CSS3 Backgrounds and Borders (Partial), CSS3 Flexible Box Layout (Partial), CSS3 User Interface (Partial)
    • Device: Touch Events, CSS3 Media Queries (Partial), Vibration API, getUserMedia API, Battery Status, Device Orientation Events (Accelerometer, Gyro sensor only)
    • Communication: XMLHttpRequest Level 2
    • Security: iframe sandbox, CSP1.0 (Partial)
    • UI: Clipboard API, Drag and Drop
    • Storage: Web Storage, File Reader API, Indexed DB API
    • Performance: Web Worker (Partial), Page visibility API

  • Changes in W3C APIs:

    • Page visibility API: “webkit” prefix is now removed.
      • E.g., webkitvisibilitychange  ->  visibilitychange
    • File Reader API: BlobBuilder is deprecated and replaced by Blob object
    • Indexed DB flag change: multientry -> multiEntry

  • Khronos specifications support : WebGL, Typed Arrays

  • W3C Widget specifications support

    • Packaging and Configuration, Digital Signing, Widget Interface

  • Device APIs to access to a device’s platform capabilities support

    • Alarm, Application, Bluetooth, Filesystem, System Information, Power API
    • Motion(pedometer, Wrist-up) API is supported to get various sensor information efficiently
    • Note that the following properties in System Information API are not supported: LOCALE, NETWORK, WIFI_NETWORK, CELLULAR_NETWORK, SIM.

  • Camera API support

    • Camera preview, change camera settings (picture size, picture format, etc.), image capture, video recording etc.
    • Audio recording
      • Supported audio recording format: AMR and 3GP

  • Web Runtime

    • The following constraint is added for web application packages (widgets).
      • Application ID: Once published, an application ID cannot be changed.

  • Web application templates

  • Web UI framework

    • Page navigation and basic event handling support as JavaScript library
    • CSS themes and resources for reference Web UI widgets
    • Advanced widgets including virtual list, indexed scroll, and swipelist
    • System font change is reflected
    • Widgets test application for wearable UI

  • Clock widget support

    • User customized clock widget on home screen

 

IDE and Tools

    New Features

    • Web IDE and tools
      • Web IDE
        • Command Bar
          • Provides convenient commands tool which is integrated with IDE.
        • Certificate
          • Provides using Android keystore at generating certificate request.
        • Connection Explorer
          • Remote Device Manager
            • Provides management feature for remote connected devices.
        • Project Wizard
          • Provides ‘Mobile’ and ‘Wearable’ template and samples.
        • Project properties
          • Provides resource filters for packaging.
      • Web UI Builder
        • Animator
          • Provides css animation to widget.
          • Provides animation management(create, delete, copy, cut, paste) in the timeline.
          • Create a trigger that can be associated with the widget to deal with animation
          • Can operate(play/stop/pause) animation so can confirm animation moving in Editor(By css animation framework made by Javascript)
        • Pages View
          • An empty page can be added.
          • A new page can be added by the Page Template.
        • Resources View
          • Provides easy editing for setting image property.
          • Provides resources management (copy / paste / delete / rename).
          • Provides filtering & finding resources.
          • Provides importing resources.
        • Widget Snippet
          • Widget snippet is supported.
          • Snippet management (create / delete / rename / import / export) is supported
        • Page Template
          • Page template is supported.
          • Template group management (create / delete) is supported.
          • Template management (create / delete / import / export) is supported.
        • N-screen
          • Provides easy editing way for UI of predefined resolution.
        • CSS Selector
          • Supports CSS Selector add to widget from live DOM.
    • Emulator
      • Emulator Control Panel (the original event injector is removed)
        • Supports for device manager like Device Tree, Network
        • Supports for virtual input like Gesture, Pedometer
        • Supports for uninstalling Apps
        • Changed Features
        • Install Manager
        • Supports Multi-Profile installation
        • Renewal UI and improved UX
      • Improved performance
    • Web IDE and tools
      • Certificate
        • Disabled generating author certificate button at Security Profile of preferences, since the process generating author certificate is changed.
        • Provides toolbar for generating certificate request and registering certificate.
      • Connection Explorer
        • Renewal UI and improved UX
      • Project Explorer
        • Shows platform profile information with project name
        • Shows contents of wgt file directly
      • Build and Packaging
        • Packaging process is separated with build process.
        • Provides context menu of ‘Build Package’.
      • Web UI Builder
        • Programming model
          • Supports HTML file edit using WYSIWYG editor.
          • Supports creating / editing HTML file which have multiple page.
        • Outline View
          • Supports for drag-and-drop creation, moving of widgets.Properties View
        • Properties VIew
          • Editing CSS style UX has been enhanced.
    • Emulator
      • Menu
        • The host keyboard menu was deleted from popup menu and Emulator Control Panel. From now on, Tizen platform automatically recognizes a host keyboard when key event is injected.

Known Issues

  • Web IDE
  • Web UI Builder
    • The text function as ellipsis and line-break is sometimes displayed differently with an actuality operation.
  • Emulator
    • On Windows, depending on your OS theme (like non-Aero themes, Windows XP themes), a display surface could be erased for a while if emulator window is obscured by other window. If you click the emulator window, the display surface would work correctly.
    • The Emulator skin may not be drawn properly on Ubuntu™. If the graphics driver is not installed or an old version is installed. To fix this issue, upgrade the graphics driver.
    • When the disk storage is full, various incorrect operations may occur.
    • To use the Tizen emulator, you need Intel VTx supported by CPU, latest vendor-provided version of the graphic card driver et al. Please check the prerequisites for the Tizen emulator