S60 Open to new features

Java Developers can now start developing for a new eSWT UI toolkit. On actual devices eSWT will be available starting from S60 3rd Edition FP2 devices. eSWT API takes S60 Java Platform user interface capabilities to a completely new level.

The graphics capabilities of Java are already very rich but so far, the capability of the S60 Java platform UI toolkit (MIDP LCDUI) has not been on par with the S60 native UI frameworks. However, the S60 3rd Edition FP 2 changes this dramatically by introducing a completely new UI component toolkit to the Java Platform called eSWT. Standing for embedded Standard Widget Toolkit, eSWT is a significant facelift for Java UI frameworks.

eSWT is a cross platform toolkit developed in cooperation in Eclipse open source project called eRCP. What's even more interesting is that eSWT shares most of the API with desktop SWT.

The eSWT API provides:
- A rich user interface component set
- Flexible and scalable layout system via layout managers
- Rich user interface events
- Access to native UI functionality on par with smartphone UI frameworks.

Screenshots from an example application using eSWT

Since eSWT on the S60 has been implemented using the normal S60 UI services, applications built using it will automatically have the standard look and feel of S60, including S60 themes and internationalization features.

The eSWT plugin for S60 Java SDK is available:
eSWT plug-in for S60 3rd Edition SDK for Symbian OS, Supporting Feature Pack 2, for MIDP, Beta.
You need to have the beta SDK which is available here:
Java SDK for 3rd Edition, FP 2, Beta.

The plugin implementation for the SDK is identical to the actual device implementation. It is just compiled to S60 emulator target (Intel). We are very interested to hear your comments about the new toolkit.

There's different ways to contact us. We are part of the Eclipse eRCP project so you can post comments to the Eclipse eRCP newsgroup. On how to access see eRCP project pages for info. For bugs you may find a report to Eclipse Bugzilla is preferred. Or you can drop a comment also to this blog.

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Comments

This is gonna be great. I for one am looking forward to being able to develop UI with eSWT. Two questions though:

1) There seems to be a bug on 3rd FP2 sdk emulator that prevents it from working in Eclipse. That also makes it impossible to try this plugin. Is there a solution to that bug (jar comes a couple bytes off the size it should and doesn't compile)? What has been a working configuration for those that have gotten it to work?

2) Will there be a possibility to add eSWT support to 3rd FP1 phones, such as E90?

Posted by: pillar | October 15, 2007 12:45 PM

There is a workaround for that bug. It was commented to our earlier post about the release of the beta SDK. I quote "There's also a workaround: right-click on the project and select J2ME->"Create Package" before launching the MIDlet to emulator".

Posted by: Gorkem Ercan | October 15, 2007 02:20 PM

To answer pillar's question 2) Will there be a possibility to add eSWT support to 3rd FP1 phones, such as E90?

The S60 Java Platform prior to 3rd ED FP2 devices has non-modular VM that does not allow eSWT implementation to be post installed. There's no way to bring new Java API implementations to that VM or update the existing ones. Technically the whole VM + class libraries would need to be replaced in these devices but we are currently not planning to do this for eSWT.

The Nokia eRCP for S60 is actually doing like this. There's whole eRCP sw-stack (VM+CDC+eRCP) available for Nokia E90 for selected partners for trials from Nokia. This has eSWT implementation also.

Posted by: Aleksi Uotila | October 15, 2007 04:32 PM

The workaround is not working for me. There are many others still not able to use the sdk, so please someone tell the nokia sdk team to get the final version out fast (and have this solved in it!)

Posted by: pillar | November 13, 2007 07:22 PM

That is some cool stuff. Just wish that would support s60 3rd. Oh well have to bury my symbian programming.

Posted by: BlackDog | February 3, 2008 07:31 PM

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