Friday, August 18, 2006

Start developing eSWT applications for mobile phones

There are some different UI toolkits for the J2ME/CDC platform. Except Java ME/CDC’s old UI toolkit AWT, we also have AGUI (JSR-209) which is a subset of Swing for CDC. Both are standardized through the jcp process.

But Nokia talk about eSWT instead of AGUI, but eSWT is not a JCP standard.
I have playing around with eSWT for a while.
There is a good document about developing embedded apps with eSWT

1) I started with download a trial of IBM Workplace Client Technology Micro Edition 5.7
It packages the following portfolio of products:
- WebSphere Everyplace Micro Environment
- WebSphere Studio Device Developer
- WebSphere Everyplace Custom Environment
- IBM Service Management Framework

At the download page I downloaded the follow three files:
Workplace Client Technology, Micro Edition for Windows (containing all component products and tools)
- Read me (WCTMEReadme.html (50KB))
- Installation Guide (WCTMEInstall.html (20KB) )
- Workplace Client Technology, Micro Edition 5.7.1 for Windows (windows_cd.zip (611MB))

2) After downloaded all files I started the installation and choose to install “IBM WebSphere Studio Device Developer 5.7.1”.

3) Then I also need to install “eSWT (BETA) for Extension Services”
Start WSDD and in the menu select select .
Select update site: IBM Micro Environment Toolkit for WebSphere Studio
I installed this:
- SMF Bundle Development Kit
- Extension Services
- eSWT (BETA) for Extension Services
- JSR 169 (BETA) for Extension Services (add JDBC support)

4) A example application and howto configure WSDD I found in this document How to Develop eSWT Apps on WSDD 5.7.1, you also need to download the file: eSWT-WSDD-M3.zip for that document.

Today there no phone supporting eSWT, perhaps in the beginning of 2007 we will se the first phone (but I don’t know; only Nokia know).

I wondering what SonyEricsson and Motorola will support in the future , eSWT or AGUI?
I know SavaJe support AGUI (I bought a phone at last JavaOne).

For us developer it look like we have to learn both eSWT and AGUI!

update:
New article Explore Eclipse's embedded Rich Client Platform

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

is there any standard for packaging eSWT apps, like for Nokia phones we can use Sis packaging but does eSWT recommend any standard like jar or jad for j2me apps.

Ove Nordström said...

Yes, but I am not the right person to explain this (I am not a expert in eRCP), but I try anyway. I think it is like this:
On top of JavaME there is a OSGI Service plattform. The OSGI service platform consist of a framework that Manages components called bundles. A bundles consist of jar files and cofig. files.
Read more: http://www.eclipse.org/ercp/eclipseworld-ercp.pdf

Perhaps also ask this in this forum:
http://www.eclipsezone.com/eclipse/forums/f18118.html

Regards,
Ove