Inside NetBeans Mobility

Some time ago Sun released OpenSolaris. It is simply the x86 version of Solaris 10 made open source. It is available as Live CD with very cool installer (Similar to Ubuntu Linux). The Netbeans Mobility Pack was unusable on this OS because of lack of the Java ME SDK for this platform. Major problem with JavaME/MIDP emulators for Solaris was missing preverifiers. Most of the them are native applications which comes with Java ME platforms for Windows or Linux like Wireless Toolkit or MPowerPlayer for Mac OS X and they are not available for Solaris. Fortunately since version 4.0 ProGuard comes with preverifier. The ProGuard is set of tools 100% written in Java so it also runs on Solaris. I was able to combined ProGuard and Microemualtor and now it is possible to write, run and debug MIDP application on my favorite OS. This feature is not yet part of the Mobility 6.5 but most likely will be in the final version of incoming relase. If you are using Solaris x86 or Mac OS X and you'd like to try this new feature you can download "preview" version of plugins from Netbeans wiki page:

Mobility Support for Solaris and Mac OSX

Microemulator is available here:

Microemulator project home page

Micoremulator, Mobility and OpenSolaris in action:

In Netbeans Mobility 6 we have introduced new components like File Browser, SMS Composer or new SVG Components. They all well documented in the tutorials and documentation but I've noticed that MIDP related components don't have any overview or description in Mobility documentation (which could be a problem for less experienced Java ME developers). Thats why I've created simply overview of the Mobility Visual Designer components which is available here:

Mobility Components Overview

We also have few old (NetBeans Mobility 5.x) tutorials which are still valid for version 6. If you try to run examples from this tutorials please change Java ME platform from WTK 2.2 to WTK 2.5.2 and also screen shots show old version of Mobility but most important thing which is components API is unchanged.

Wait Screen Component Tutorial

Splash Screen Component Tutorial

Table Item Component Tutorial

Since version 6.0 of the Netbeans Mobility it is possible to add Custom Components to the Visual Designer. Unfortunately it requires some knowledge of the Visual Designer architecture and could be difficult at the beginning. It'd be simpler if Netbeans could create all necessary files for Mobility Components. Thats way we decided to introduce new feature in incoming release of Netbeans Mobility: Custom Component Project Support. It helps to create and "inject" Java ME components into the Netbeans Mobility Visual Designer. Developers will have possibility to create Mobility Components Project straight from one of the categories in the New Project Wizard. The Custom Component Project Support will help to generate skeleton of the new Mobility Component including Component Descriptors, Component Producers and add another Mobility Components using wizards. If you'd like to read more about this feature look at this document:

Custom Component Project Support Specification

Final version will be available in Netbeans Mobility 6.5 and also in Netbeans daily builds.

Custom Components Project Support screenshoot

Some of you probably don't want to wait until Mobility 6.5 and maybe have some cool ideas for Mobility Components right now, in this case look at the following tutorial:

Mobility Visual Designer - Custom Components Tutorial

It contains information how to create component for Visual Designer, describes architecture of Visual Designer Components and also has example of the Custom Component project.

Netbeans 6.1 is finally ready. In this release most important task for Mobility team was to improve NetBeans Mobility stability. We didn't implement any "breakthrough" features but there is one worth it to mention: MPowerPlayer SDK support for Mac OS X. Using NetBeans Mobility 6.1 it is possible to add MPowerPlayer SDK with "Add Java ME Platform" wizard same way as you can add WTK 2.5.2 or any other Java ME Platform to Netbeans Mobility (under Windows or Linux).

This is MpowerPlayer SDK running on Mac OS X:

and Mobility 6.1 Screen Designer in action:

Part from this feature I was also able to do small improvements all over Mobility Visual Designer. One of this improvements is direct access to the SVG Composer from Screen Designer while you working with SVG files. This feature is available in the Screen Designer pop up menu - "Edit SVG File".

You can download Netbeans Mobility from HERE .

Note: If you want to install Mobility on Mac OS X you have to download "OS independent ZIP" because NetBeans Mobility for Mac OS is still not (officially) supported.

Update: Unfortunately I just found out that I have small bug in MPowerPlayer SDK plugin. If you install MPowerPlayer make sure that SDK path dose not have spaces in the name, otherwise you may not be able to run MPowerPlayer emulator directly from NetBeans Mobility. I'll try to fix it in incoming NetBeans Patch for 6.1.