Introduction

Support for MTP means that Symbian devices are able to interact with Microsoft Windows (certain versions only) without the need to install any additional software on either device. The degree of interaction (the range and sophistication of features available) will depend upon the software built into both the PC and the Symbian device.

• More on MTP

The basic Symbian MTP framework provides access to the public file system on the device over a USB connection. The PC user is able to view the file system using applications such as Windows Explorer and the Windows Media Player.

Within Symbian OS MTP is implemented as a framework which allows the use of a variety of transports (e.g. USB, TCP/IP, Bluetooth...), a variety of modes (MTP, PTP & PictBridge) and a variety of Data Providers (e.g. specific media and data type providers).

There are three interfaces to the MTP Framework.

• The Transport Interface is currently internal to Symbian so licencees may not yet add additional transports.

• The Control Interface is used to start and stop the framework: It is available to partners.

• The Data Provider Interface is the most significant. It enbles Symbian partners to create plug-in data providers to support a range of media and data types. Symbian provides a file system data provider, compatible with Windows Desktop, which allows the PC to display and manipulate the device's public file system.

Data Providers

Data providers may be created (by licensees and partners) to support specific data (media) types. They are created as ECOM plugins and are built into the ROM. It is not possible to add data providers after the ROM has been built. The MTP framework enables a connected PC to ascertain the data types supported by a device's plugins. A guide to writing a Data Provider may be found here.

• How to write a Data Provider plugin

Controlling and Configuring the MTP framework

The MTP framework is started and stopped using the Control Interface. This uses the standard Symbian OS Client/Server model. One client of the MTP server is the USB Manager, which automatically starts the server (and the framework) when a device is connected to a PC over USB. A guide to using the control interface may be found here.

• How to control the MTP framework

There are a number of ways in which the MTP framework is configured.

• Via settings in the Central Repository

• Via the Publish and Subscribe system

• Via an exclusion list in the File System Data Provider

MTP developement requires the MTP Porting Kit, which can be downloaded from the Microsoft Website

• Bluetooth

• ECOM

• Connectivity Engineering Documents

• Publish and Subscribe overview

• Central Repository Engineering Documents

• USB Manager Engineering Documents