Jacek Wojciechowski's Forum Nokia Blog

Java Runtime 2.0 for S60 in beta, improves usability and performance

2009-07-02T00:10:22+03:00

A beta version of Java Runtime 2.0 for S60 (JRT 2.0) has been made available via Nokia Beta Labs. As you may remember (I wrote about it some time ago), Java Runtime is now versioned and released separately from the underlying S60 Platform. The latest version of JRT can be installed directly to our smartphones, using the built-in Nokia S60 Software Update functionality. What's new? As you may read on Nokia Beta Labs, it is a totally re-written Java mobile execution environment for Nokia S60 devices. It gives several usability and performance improvements, including: one-click application installation, improved application launch user experience (a 'loading' animation is shown), improved execution performance.

I think that major changes made under the hood may mean "arrival of MIDP 3.0 era" on Nokia devices in the near future (I hope so!). What do you think about this theory?

Java ME Platform SDK 3.0 (final) is out

2009-04-23T13:35:44+03:00

In case you're still interested in developing Java ME applications there's a final version of Java ME Platform SDK 3.0. I wrote about it's features (based on EA version) ealier on my blog. One may note that it's still only available for Microsoft Windows XP or Vista (what about linux?).

Download link for final version (116.7 MB)

Java Runtime for S60 with Mobile Sensor API support, finally!

2009-04-02T19:33:42+03:00

First of all, it's worth noting that Nokia has introduced a new naming scheme for Java platform - "Starting from S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 Java Runtime for S60 is versioned separately from the underlying S60 Platform with aim to provide more frequently new Java versions to the market. Key drivers for that are for example faster time-to-market for new features and a possibility to update Java Runtimes for S60 independently in the future via Nokia SW Update." IMHO, it's a very good decision - the concept is very similar to e.g. Sony Ericsson Java Platform 8 (JP-8) or ealier versions. Currently published versions include Java Runtime 1.3 for S60 (JRT 1.3) and forthcoming Java Runtime 1.4 for S60 (JRT 1.4).

JRT 1.3.x is in use in the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic (sw 20.0.012 onwards) and includes some new features like MIDP security prompting enhancement (a possibility to select the security setting, when the prompt is shown), popup textbox, freely resizable fonts, support for new system property "com.nokia.mid.msisdn" to retrieve the MSISDN, Nokia UI API 1.2, orientation support for Location API (JSR-179) if device has magnetometer hardware, forcing certain orientation by using "Nokia-MIDlet-App-Orientation" JAD attribute, support for downscaling of Canvas graphics.

JRT 1.4.x is in use in the forthcoming Nokia N97. It's very nice to see Mobile Sensor API (JSR-256) support (supports accelerometer, battery charge sensor, charger state sensor, network field intensity sensor). Now you can access sensors natively in Java ME like it's done in C++ (sensor framework) or WRT widgets / Flash Lite (Sensor Service API) and don't need "Multi-Language Programming". The API came to the platform quicker than I expected. JRT 1.4.x includes also Nokia UI API 1.3, 9-way navigation support, 8 Mpix camera support, improved Java support for QWERTY devices, On-Screen Keypad on device with touch screen and hardware keyboard, finger usability improvements for touch screen (tap detection).

The version of JRT can be checked by using standard MIDP system property "microedition.platform". A working sample MIDlet code is available here.

NetBeans 6.5, Java ME inside

2008-11-21T15:54:42+02:00

Version 6.5 of NetBeans IDE has been released! The 'mobility part' is now included into one standard Java bundle that also contains Java SE, Java EE, Java FX, web components and servers (GlassFish, Tomcat). The installation file is about 212MB (NetBeans 6.1 'mobility' was 72MB)! One may ask why there's no separate bundle - IMHO, the answer is simple - Java ME and Java EE complement one another in different environments and more IDE components are Java ME+EE enabled (like webservices or SIP). Of course, you can add or remove packs later using the IDE's Plugin Manager (Tools -> Plugins).

What's new for Java ME developers?

new project wizard for adding custom components to the Visual Designer Palette
new SVG UI components in the enhanced SVG Composer enable rich UI design
new Data Binding Custom Components in the Visual Designer Palette
upgraded obfuscation tool to ProGuard 4.2 and test framework to JMUnit 1.1.0

You'll find more (screenshots included) about described features at NetBeans IDE 6.5 New and Noteworthy page.

Bonus links:
NetBeans IDE 6.5 Features
NetBeans IDE 6.5 Tutorials and Documentation
Guided Video Tour of NetBeans IDE 6.5

A first look at Java ME Platform SDK 3.0

2008-10-16T19:24:48+03:00

Java ME Platform SDK toolbox is the successor to the well known Java Wireless Toolkit 2.5.2 and Java Toolkit 1.0 for CDC. It integrates CLDC, CDC and Blu-ray Disc Java (BD-J) technology into one SDK. It provides device emulation, a standalone development environment and a set of utilities for rapid development of Java ME applications.

The key features include:

Integration with 3rd party emulators and Windows Mobile devices
On-device deployment and on-device debugging
CLDC/MIDP, CDC/FP/PBP/AGUI and BD-J integrated into one SDK
New CLDC HotSpot Virtual Machine
Optimized MSA 1.1 stack with extensions
Profiling support
BD-J support
New development environment based on Netbeans Platform
Lightweight UI Toolkit (LWUIT) integration
Device search database integrated in SDK

From developer's point of view, the deprecated KVM has been replaced with the CLDC HotSpot VM which provides a significant performance advantage over KVM. Java ME Platform SDK contains an optimized CLDC/MIDP stack that is build upon CLDC 1.1 and MIDP 2.1. It also contains the following new JSRs: Mobile Sensor API (JSR 256), XML API for Java ME (JSR 280), Java Binding for the OpenGL ES API (JSR 239). What I really like is the support for XML API for Java ME and Mobile Sensor API. The first API enhances the XML support distributed over several JSRs today (it provides SAX2 event handler-based parsing, efficient DOM-style document processing) and it's goal is to avoid further fragmentation by offering one common set of XML APIs. The second one and my favourite allows Java ME application developers to fetch data from sensors (sensors can vary from physical sensors such as magnetometers and accelerometers to virtual sensors that combine and manipulate the data they have received from various kinds of physical sensors. An example of a virtual sensor might be a level sensor indicating the remaining charge in a battery or a field intensity sensor that measures the reception level of the mobile network signal in a mobile phone. JSR 256 supports many different types of sensor connection - wired, wireless, embedded and more). Wouldn't it be nice to see this API working on S60 5th edition (there's a sensor framework for C++ and it would be sensible to have JSR 256 too)? Maybe it will happen in S60 5th FP1 . Java ME Platform SDK comes with a built-in "sexy" LWUIT library. What's really cool is the built-in WURFL database search tool that allows you to search a large number of mobile device properties (currently more than 8000 device specifications). As the tool is based on Netbeans platform it looks familiar to Netbeans IDE users (e.g., look&feel, profiler based on Netbeans profiler, shared project system, modularized environment with the ability to update on the fly).

The Java ME SDK is currently available as an Early Access for Windows XP and Vista.

The new Java ME SDK looks attractive, doesn't it? Looking forward to your comments.

NetBeans Mobility 6.1 (final) is now available

2008-04-28T16:11:09+03:00

Today, a final version of NetBeans IDE 6.1 has been released. I was reviewing some of NetBeans Mobility features not so long ago. Next point on NetBeans IDE roadmap is version 6.5.

Download link for version 6.1

NetBeans Mobility 6.1 - my NetBeans RoadShow story

2008-04-17T13:45:00+03:00

Some time ago I promised to write small review about NetBeans Mobility. Last week, I attended NetBeans RoadShow 07-08 conference in Warsaw, Poland. Of course, I was mainly interested in sessions related to mobility and new NetBeans features. I had an unique opportunity to ask Sun's software engineer about future of Java ME and NetBeans Platform. In the case of Java ME, final MIDP 3.0 specification should be ready later this year and Java ME is also part of Java FX Mobile (a mobile phone running JavaFX APIs will also be able to run Java ME applications), so "I shouldn't worry that I'll have to change a job". In the case of NetBeans Mobility, the future looks also bright - future versions will support MIDP 3.0, JavaFX Mobile, more device platforms, more components and visual data binding.

Let's look into NetBeans in version 6.1 (RC1). It may be considered as development IDE for Java ME and widgets (!). Generally, it starts a lot faster than previous versions and has smarter code completion (including Javadoc).

J2ME:
In addition to NB Mobility 6.0 features, it has even better support for SVG. Thanks to SVG, there're two developing roles in the project: graphical designers create images (menus, etc.), developers add business logic. Creating SVG application is really simple - it's done by using "Microsoft programming method" (you need mouse, mouse pad and your eyes) - almost no programming at all (check FN screencast Getting Started with JSR-226 Applications for S60 Devices that demonstrates the creation of a simple Java ME application using the SVG features of NetBeans Mobility and the example used in the presentation). The "SVG programming" is simplified by visual designer supporting such components as: SVG Menu, SVG Splash Screen, SVG Wait Screen, SVG Image, SVG Player. What's interesting, some components of Visual Mobile Designer are displayed only if your application supports chosen JSR (e.g., if your application doesn't support SVG API, you won't see SVG components). The developers who are interested in developing in NB Mobility may be interested in a screencast that illustrates how to create, edit, package, and deploy a simple Java application.

Widgets:
Although currently there is no plugin for widgets like for Eclipse IDE, it's still possible to write widgets easily. You can use IDE's HTML, CSS and JavaScript editors with an Ant script to make everything automatically. Among "standard JavaScript editor features" like semantic highlighting, marking occurrences, refactoring, tasklist or code completion (of course, not for specific widget APIs), there's one more worth mentioning - Quick Fixes and Semantic Checks. The IDE warns the developer when code has no side effects, when using an assignment in a conditional (if x = y) or when code has inconsistent returns from a function (where some return expressions return a value, and some do not).

There's a great (old), but extremely useful feature for people developing in both IDEs - Eclipse and NetBeans. You can have the same keymap (in NetBeans choose Tools -> Options -> Keymap and set to Eclipse), e.g. formatting of source code in both IDEs under Ctrl+Shift+F (normally Alt+Shift+F in NetBeans, where Ctrl+Shift+F means Find in projects option). This's the first option I set, after deactivating all not used modules/plugins.

However, there're many things that can be done to enhance the NetBeans Mobility IDE 6.1:

word "Mobility" for Sun means 'mobile Java' - why there's no support for developing WAP (WML, WMLScript, XHTML MP)? Since the IDE supports HTML, XML, JavaScript it wouldn't be a problem to add such support and make the IDE more "Mobility edition",
mobile widgets support would be a plus,
new components like: MMS composer/editor, tabs component, lbs - show your current position component (that will hide the complexity of implementing it on many devices - location API / bluetooth API + NMEA), lbs - show your position on map (Google/Yahoo) component...

Good news for Java ME developers... NetBeans Mobility 6.0, WTK 2.5.2

2007-12-03T14:42:39+02:00

Today, a final version of NetBeans Mobility IDE 6.0 has been released. Features worth mentioning are:

improved Visual Mobile Designer (with version 2 of the VMD you can: drag and drop components like wait screens, login screens, file browsers, SMS composer, and splash screens onto a canvas; the VMD also makes GUI localization easier)
mobile Game Builder (with a visual editor you can now develop mobile games designed for the MIDP 2.0 Game API)
modular build system (you can add new platform types, deployment types, configurations providers, and more)
a solution for the Device Fragmentation Issues (multiple device configurations)
access to Web Services (simplifies writing applications that use Web Services API for devices with JSR-172)
improved SVG Support
integrated tools for JMUnit testing, MIDlet signing, certificate management, automatic code obfuscation, integrated over-the-air (OTA) emulation, push registry emulation, WMA emulation for SMS and CBS messages, new deployment methods, and Wireless Messaging and Multimedia APIs.

Click here to download NetBeans Mobility v6.0 (now you have got everything in one package). I'll try to write a small review about interesting features in near feature.

Other Java ME important tool - Sun Java Wireless Toolkit - has been upgraded to version 2.5.2. New version features improved support for multiuser environments and better support for Linux distributions.
Click here to download WTK 2.5.2.

ZXing (another open source barcode reader) + barcodes in ads = success story?

2007-11-23T13:34:32+02:00

We have got some proprietary barcode readers for our mobiles, some closely related open source projects, and now Google has announced yet another. ZXing (pronounced "zebra crossing") is an open-source, multi-format 1D/2D barcode reader library implemented in Java. The goal of the project is to support decoding of QR Codes, Data Matrix, and the UPC family of 1D barcodes, so it will set the 'minimum standard' for open source barcode readers. It will provide clients for J2ME, J2SE and... Android (this client will be released later). Currently working version has support for UPC an QR Code, some key features like Data Matrix decoding and support for advanced JSRs will be added soon. This is an open source project, so you can actively contribute to it.

What's also interesting, Google is going to trial QR codes with print advertisers (read more). That way, barcodes can revolutionize traditional print advertising and make it even more useful for readers, because they allow readers to "click" on interesting print ads with their cellphones and seamlessly connect to relevant online content (first example from US newspaper, found on Flickr).

Let's hope that the idea will be accepted by the newspapers' readers and the barcodes will reproduce the success story of SMS in marketing area.

Open source scripting for mobile phones (part 2)

2007-09-08T12:14:38+03:00

Last time I wrote about TCL based language - HECL. Now, let's go back in time. I believe you still remember DOS and its scripting language (also available in "visual" version in current Windows platforms).

This time I will focus on QBasic language, which is also available for mobiles (Java ME). It's called CellularBASIC and it's an open source project. The scripting language is a dialect of QBASIC 1.1, supporting more than 90 keywords, along with some special features (64-floating point arithmetic, trigonometric, screen I/O, file I/O, SMS sending, network programming, graphics...). The project has good documentation (command reference, keywords with examples).

If you would like to play a little with old QBasic 1.1, you can download it from Microsoft pages or play with CellularBasic directly on the device (editing of code is supported) or PC. For these of you who are not familiar or don't remember the language, the simplest Hello World code is as following:

PRINT "Hello World by Jacek Wojciechowski!"

I wish I had a FDD to read my very old 5.25" floppy disk with my old QBasic apps, but this task is not very easy nowadays ;-)