|
I was reading the Google CEO's article at Wall
Street Journal website. Guys, Smartphones are here to stay.
I agree with his prediction that if technology keeps growing at the
current pace, one day people will be using Smartphones for almost every
thing. Though they may not replace who we are.
So for software enthusiasts who want to be ahead
of the curve, I would encourage them to at least write a small
application for a Smartphone to really appreciate the new technology.
Think about the potential it represents to your business where people
can literally perform their business activities anywhere(parking lots,
cars) using your technology.
Keeping that in mind I tried my hand at writing a small application for
the smartphone I own.
There are 2 paths to develop apps for Smartphone.
1. Microsoft Visual Studio
2. Java based development.
I will describe how I developed a hello world
app and a persistent object app (Next thread) using Java based app
development.
Set
up environment - Download Java
I downloaded Java version 6.0 from http://www.sun.com/download/
The default path I used on my machine is c:\sun.
This is because I thought it is easier to give a small 3 lettered
directory at c drive and will be easier to compile the code in
Java.
I also edited the path environment variable to compile the code. I
added C:\Sun\SDK\jdk\bin to the path system variable. Here are the
steps to do this:
- Right click
on Start button and click explore.
- Right click
on my computer and click properties
Click on Advanced Tab.
. Click on Environment Variables.
. Added the system path. C:\Sun\SDK\jdk\bin;
Download
Eclipse
The first time I downloaded this, I expected an executable file to
install. But it is not an executable file. It is a zip file. I have
downloaded the zip file from this location.
http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/
I created a directory called c:\eclipse and
unzipped the contents of the zip file. Since this is a set of folders,
I have created a shortcut pointing to this directory.
The following is the execute command for the
shortcut C:\eclipse\eclipse.exe -vm C:\Sun\SDK\jdk\jre\bin
Notice that after calling the .exe file, I am
pointing to the bin directory in java directory for starting the vm.
After Eclipse is configured, I installed the
blackberry plug-in for eclipse. This is a zip file and uninstalled the
contents of the zip file into the eclipse home directory folder. The
following link specifies where you can find the plug in software
The next step is to move the code to the Blackberry unit. To
do
this, in eclipse software, I had to search for an option that
generate .ALX file.
For the version of eclipse that I am using, the generate .alx feature
is at the following place.
After I did the above, I compiled the code. The .ALX file is an XML
file. I opened the desktop manager for Blackberry. Then I went to
Add/Update
program feature and browsed to the place where the COD file and .ALX
file is present and selected.
This helped me to update the blackberry with the HELLO WORLD APP
Well this is how I did my first application and hope you do too .. and
enjoy.
In the next thread I will describe the persistent object I worked on.
|