BlackBerry Native

Updates in 10.2 Gold

Published: August 14th, 2013

Explore our site updates in this release

We've made a lot of updates to the site's design and its contents since our last release. We have tons of new APIs, updated tools, and the site has received a serious facelift.

Continue reading to learn about the major changes and updates that we've done to make your native development experience even better.

First and foremost, we've merged the Cascades and Native SDK sites into one site. The motivation behind the site merge is to make content more accessible for you, our users. When we first released Cascades, it made a lot of sense to build a separate site that was dedicated to Cascades development. Now, Cascades and Core native features and APIs are more tightly integrated, so the 10.2 release is a great time to bring the two approaches together. Also, we now refer to the previous Native SDK libraries and features as 'core', to distinguish them from Cascades.

The focus controller

The primary change that you should familiarize yourself with is the focus controller.

Screen shot showing the Tools selection dialog box in the Momentics IDE.

This controller always appears in the upper-left corner of the screen and allows you switch between development approaches. If you're interested in building an app that has the signature look and feel of BlackBerry 10, choose Cascades. If you're interested in gaming or porting from another platform, choose Core.

The development approaches are not mutually exclusive. Choosing a focus brings that content to the front and center of the site, but you can still access content from the other development approach if desired.

Upgrading your tools

Before you explore the new site and start developing, you should take a look at the Release Notes for information about Upgrading to 10.2 Gold. The upgrade steps vary depending on which version of the SDK you’re upgrading from.

If you're developing apps using Cascades, you can also read the upgrade guide for 10.2, which outlines some important API changes and development considerations. If you've already created an app, be sure to check out this section for any changes you might need to make to your app for this release.

What's new?

Want to know what features and APIs are new in 10.2? Check out the Highlights and New in this release sections of the Release Notes. Use the focus controller in the upper-left corner to switch between Cascades and Core features.

The documentation landing pages have been overhauled, too, but they still highlight new and updated information that you might find helpful. Visit the Cascades and Core landing pages to learn more.

Changes

There have been some API changes since the 10.2 beta release, so make sure to check out the Changes in this release so that you know if you need to make any updates to your app.

Take the tour!

When you visit our redesigned site for the first time, you might notice a pop-up box that offers to take you on a tour of some of the new features. We encourage you to do just that! You'll learn where all of our content lives, and you'll get a glimpse of the changes that we're especially proud of.

If you didn't take the tour on your first visit, you can start it again by clicking the links in the Getting Started section on our front page.

Screen shot showing the Getting Started section on the front page.

4. Educate yourself

The Documentation tab contains tons of examples, tutorials, and best practices to guide you along the path towards building an awesome app.

The documentation for your preferred focus always appears at the top of the left-hand navigation, but you can still access the rest of the documentation at the bottom.

5. Start developing

The Reference tab is where you'll find essential details about how to use our APIs.

You can use the left-hand navigation to choose how you would like to browse the reference: by module, by topic, or alphabetically. If you have an idea of what you are looking for, start typing it in the Filter box.