Our First Blackberry Application

I recently finished publishing our first Java based Blackberry application. While the learning curve is not overly steep, seting up your development enviornment and also deploying your compiled application for the first time can be a confusing.

The first thing to take note of is that versions count! It's natural when downloading software to grab the newest version without a second throught, but this will get you into trouble. You need to check your device(s) before you start, and download the version of the development environment that corresponds with your oldest target device's OS. The software version you download will come with a handful of appropriate simulators, and will work on newer devices fairly consistently, but don't expect the programs you publish to work on older devices.

There are two popular options for the development of Blackberry Java Applications:

• Blackberry Java Development Environment (JDE)
• Eclipse with Blackberry JDE Plug-in

The first option is Blackberry designed and created software. It is by far the easiest to setup, as it's a single install that gives you an editor and simulators. The Eclipse route, however, is a much better development experience, especially for those who are new to Java. It includes code hinting, (commonly called auto complete or intellisense), but is more difficult to get setup. It requires downloading Eclipse 3.4 Ganymede, Blackberry JDE Plug-in v1.0, and the Component Pack for your desired version. With both versions, you will also probably want to download the MDS Runtime, which enables you to emulate wireless connections.

The final bit of confusion is in the deployment stages. There is the 128kB limit to compiled .cod files; 64kB for the application and another 64kB for resources. Part of the reason for this is that if a single .cod file were to exceed this limit it would most likely have problems being deployed over the air. If your compiled project exceeds this limit, it still outputs a single .cod file. You can't, however, deploy this file. It needs to be opened with an archiving tool like WinZip, at which point you will see that it contains a number of sibling .cod files, which need to be extracted and placed on your deployment server beside your .jad.