Developing on S60

Görkem has written more details on our future user interface plans at Java Runtime for S60. The upcoming changes in Symbian Foundation for UIs require long lead time development which has already been started in our team. We currently have Java UIs running on Qt framework on desktop and we are now focusing on ensuring that things work OK in S60 environment on Qt as well as implementing mobile specific integration and then advanced features like bridging of MIDP LCDUI and eSWT as well as those other features. One additional theme in our UI development that is good to mention is graphics hardware acceleration and enablement of what Symbian OS marketing calls as Screenplay for all of our graphics and media APIs: LCDUI 2D graphics, M2G, M3G and MMAPI.

S60 Java Runtime guys shot some video material on our Nokia Developer Summit demo. It’s showcasing Java Sensor API & Java Bluetooth API usage with BT controlled Tamiya RC Mini Cooper S 2006 car.

The demo uses many Java APIs and device features. Java Sensor API & accelerometer sensor of the Nokia N97 device is used for implementing the car control. Users just tilt the device in order to accelerate and turn  wheels of the car. The Java Sensor API gives demo Java app the orientation of the device. Application then turns the accelerometer signals to control signals for the car itself. These signals are transmitted to the car using Java Bluetooth API. The car itself has an additional Bluetooth module installed. Then of course in the device side there’s some UI also done with Java MIDP APIs that show the control level to the user. Touch UI is used to provide some additional control means.

Additionally we also did a special variant of the Java application for Nokia 6260 slide (Series 40) device that has an analogue joystick input device and the Java Runtime therein is bundled with a Joystick event listener (part of Nokia UI API).  So instead of tilting the device for controlling the car device’s joystick is used.

The summit slides have some more details of the MIDlet implementation on both devices.

If you are interested in developing using Java Sensor API please see also both our Sensor API Developer’s Guide and  Sensor API implementation notes. Java Sensor API is part of Java Runtime 1.4 for S60.

I’ve just got confirmation from an Ovi Store guys that Java applications DO NOT require to go through Java Verified testing when being published to Ovi Store.

It has been a huge source of complaints throughout the Internet and Ovi related discussion boards that Java application developers are forced to do testing via Java Verified. To use Java Verified before submitting the application to Ovi Store is only a recommendation for developers. If developers have other means to ensure the quality on different Nokia handsets then it’s totally acceptable to not to use it. Developers are however required to sign their content using content signing (Verisign or Thawte).

My colleague Görkem just got some eSWT support features accepted as part of the Mobile Tools for Java. For those who don’t know MTJ is a set of tools for Eclipse IDE for Mobile Java development.

There’s now code wizard and code assist features for eSWT development. It’s good to see also tools support to appear for this advanced mobile Java UI toolkit!

The Nokia Developer Summit was arranged two weeks ago and there was a presentation of the Java Runtime of S60, about the current state and it’s future. The roadmap provides a glimpse to the 2010 release contents of JRT.