BlackBerry Development Kick Start

Few weeks ago I was busy with setting up the BlackBerry development environment. The bad thing is the BlackBerry server were always down for no reason, and making the download process gone damn hard.

One of my friend has successfully setup his development JDE plug-in in Eclipse. Thus I get the whole copy of his Eclipse folder and then paste it into my PC. I though it will run as my expectation, but instead, it wouldn't because the BlackBerry simulator path has been 'hard' set in the Eclipse configuration setting. No change are allowed.

I have no choice, I must download the BlackBerry JDE plug-in. Surprisingly, the BlackBerry server were gone up in pass few days where it was down usually. Thank GOD.

A note on BlackBerry JDE plug-in for Eclipse

I found there are some tricky part on installing BlackBerry Plug-in on Eclipse. Actually there was a sequence on installing the plug-in for Eclipse. If not, the BlackBerry Project wouldn't appear in New Project Selection Wizard.

I have install BlackBerry JDE v4.7 Component Pack into my Eclipse v3.4 Ganymede, but anyhow I couldn't see any BlackBerry project in the New Project Selection Wizard when I'm creating a new project. I did restart my Eclipse but it still couldn't solve the problem. Until I have install BlackBerry JDE Plug-in Full Installer, then only I can see there is a BlackBerry project in the New Project Selection Wizard.

The Full Installer is come with the BlackBerry JDE v4.5 Component Pack, initially I though it would overwrite my current Component Pack v4.7. Fortunately it wouldn't. Thus the sequence of installing is:-

1. Install the BlackBerry JDE Plug-in Full Installer
2. Install the BlackBerry JDE v4.7 Component Pack

Either way, I have installed the second option then only installed the first option. It still work!


[resource]
http://na.blackberry.com/eng/developers/javaappdev/javaeclipseplug.jsp

Screen Resolution on S60

As I developing S60 application, I am facing a very tricking problem where the screen resolution was so different in between the emulator and the real phone. Thus I raise my problem in Nokia forum regarding on my issue.

The feedback I get from was disappointing me because this problem is a general defect of emulator. This is impossible to develop one emulator that cater for so many hand held devices with different resolution. Someone has suggest me to use J2ME Polish and LWUIT to solve my problem. But anyhow, this is not a guarantee solution which will not working 100% on the way that you want.

Please note that J2ME Polish use heavy preprocessing and it create a JAR file for every single devices whereas is fairly screen adaptive technology.

Adding Scroll bar into S60

I was having a problem to show the content inside Nokia X5800 as the content was huge. Two solutions for this:

1. Redesign the content.
2. Add scroll bar into it.

Anyhow, I am force to use the 2nd option due to the urge from requirement. Unfortunately the srcroll bar component was not inside the eSWT library. Thus a message was send out in the Nokia forum to see how this can be done.

In the mean time, I did some Google search looking for alternate solution. I got one at last, which is, I have to manually handle everything from drawing to event handling. This is the worst solution if there are no more other choices. I continue my research on scroll bar while waiting reply from Nokia forum.

The first post was reply. And he mention that I have to draw the scroll bar on canvas and receive the "down" key event in keyPress(), and then update everything in the content. Almost similar to the one I found in Google.

Base on this website, eSWT was already handled the scroll bar automatically, but the problem was that when I click and drag the scroll bar, it doesn't work. Until my friend told me that I was using the wrong emulator (I was using 3rd edition FP2 during that time) and he suggest me to use N97 emulator. Then only I notice that this is the only emulator which support touch screen.

From the answer I get from Nokia Forum, I got good news and bad news.

Here is good news:

eSWT Scrollbars on Scrollable provide low level access to scroll events so that the applications can implement their own scrolling logic. You can register for those events using the Scrollable.getHorizontalBar() or Scrollable.getVerticalBar() to get a handle to the scrollbar instance and adding a SelectionListener.

Also there is a custom utility class in Eclipse that provides automated Scrolling for Composites Called ScrolledComposite. You can fetch it from Eclipse Project.

Posted by gorkem.ercan

And here was the bad news:

There is also an ongoing discussion whether ScrolledComposite or an equivalent should become part of the eSWT here. You can actually comment/follow on the progress of that as well.

Posted by gorkem.ercan

Anyhow, my friend was able to make a custom scroll on that phone. Although it is not working perfect, but it still can satisfied the project requirement.

Can't launch S60 emulator

I was installing Nokia Symbian S60 SDK (3rd edition FP2 and N97) in my PC under C:\TOOL directory. (This is just my way of organising the files in my PC.) After the intallation completed, I was not able to launch the emulator. It tooks me about one day to figure out why this happen. Then I reinstall it under C:\ directory, its working!!

One thing must take note that although the SDK was remove from the PC, I mean uninstalled it from the PC, all the files were still there even though a new copy of SDK has been install under C:\ path. This has been making me so frustrated when I launching the emulator from Eclipse, it keep prompting not able to connect to agent. To solve this problem is to manually delete the old files.

Just curious why the S60 emulator's path was hardcoded?