Java/ J2ME mobile orbiter

[tschak909]

HAHAHAHHAHA, we typed that at exactly the same time!

;-)

-Thom

[hari]

@sambuca,

great work, thank you very much, really appreciated. If you manage to lurk around in #linuxmce-devel the next days we can talk about svn access,

br, Hari

[crudpuppy]

I'm going to need to see some docs on what the heck VMC is all about.  I searched the wiki and saw notta...anywhere else I should look?  I know you gave that explaination but it isnt enough for me to fully understand.

[hari]

@crudpuppy, i pointed you to those directories in src/ on our svn (BD, Bluetooth_Dongle, VIPShared) in irc. You really need to look at those to get a better picture. This is basically a menu container system for "offline" actions.

br, Hari

[sambuca]

Hi again,

I've made some more improvements to the JavaMO. Since last time, I've added basic phone detection, allowing for easy definition of different key mappings. Currently, I've added key mappings for Nokia (the same as was in the original MO), and for SonyEricsson. The SE mappings are made for the W580i phone, I'll try to add for the K800i soon also.
 I've used one class per phone brand (for now). It may be a bit of overkill, but I often find that it is best to separate things at the beginning, because it is easier to expand on it later without creating a mess

I also found out that the W580i (and quite a few other SE phones according to SE support) does not allow a list to have more than 255 items in them. This explains my problem with all blank entries(besides the last one). To work around this, I implemented a filtered list. The new list checks the number of items, and if it is above a particular size, it displays a list of the first characters in the list. When you select one character, you will see the list of the items starting with that character.
 I think this list also improves navigability of media on the MO. I'd like to get some feedback on this list, both from a usability perspective but also regarding stability (better/worse/same as the plain list).

The list should also handle UTF-8 character now.

New version uploaded to http://hob.dyndns.org/javamo/. Enjoy

br,
sambuca

[hari]

cool work. drop into #linuxmce-devel sometime and we'll set up svn access for you.

best regards,
Hari

[crudpuppy]

Good deal Sambuca,  I on the other hand have gotten zero done.  Last week was a nightmare here with my house closeing that was suppose to be this past friday now this upcoming friday.  I do finally have the clear to close from the mortgage company though...so hopefully this week should be smoother.  Also trying to wrap up a bunch of work projects before end of year to start with clean slate in 09.

[MarcoZan]

Hi Sambuca

I gave a try to both versions of your JavaMO on my Nokia E65.

One thing that I noticed immediately is that when I go to media submenu, choices are "shifted" i.e I see:

1 TV      2 Video     3
4 Audio  5 Pictures  6
7 Docs   8 Playlist   9
*Manage
 Drives


Basically there's nothing on square numbered 3, but if I press 3 key I go to audio submenu, and if I press 4 I go to Pictures submenu, and so on ....

This is the same in both versions.
In the second version I can't change room, i.e. if I press the key to change room nothing happens (in your first version this was anyway working fine).

When navigating Videos, I see the list by filename, when navigating audio I see list by performers.

When navigating media list (video or audio) pressing back button bring me to initial menu and not one level back.

When playing any media, if I press red button to stop it I exit app instead.

I'm still playing around with huge list, but probably I don't have enough songs to trigger the "special list".

Good job anyway, MO seems faster than previous one and seems more stable.

HTH

Marco

[sambuca]

Hi Marco,

thanks for the feedback.

The shifted media menu is strange. I think this menu is rendered by the bluetooth_dongle orbiter, so I don't think it has anything to do with the JavaMO itself.

I added device independent key mappings in the second version, so maybe I introduced a bug, although I cannot see any difference to the Nokia key mappings. I'll look into it some more. Maybe you can run the keycodes app that hari posted a while back and report your key codes?

Did the back button take you back one level from the media list before? On hari's original JavaMO or on my first version?
The media list needs more than 250 items to display as a filtered list.

The red button should not exit the app. (if this is not the phones default behaviour?) Maybe you can report the keycode for this key from the keycodes app. also, so that I can add it?

br,
sambuca

[tschak909]

Will it be possible to paint the list view on an orbiter display in a similar fashion to the Symbian Orbiter?

There is a very important reason for this,

Bluetooth_Dongle code has a special case to handle data grids that only have a single column. They are sent as text to the MO, and the MO is supposed to render them onto the canvas, keeping the background of what's behind it.

It was used in early versions of the TV EPG, and I will be using it in my IM client to be able to display a data grid, with a text box below for entering IMs.

-Thom

[hari]

isn't that done by the dongle proxy orbiter? if we receive a pic with 2 grids on it, fine..

best regards,
Hari

[tschak909]

not two grids, a grid with two or more columns

if you get two one column grids, you get those grids as text.... but that's not my point...

my point is, you can't just assume that the grid is the only thing on screen. It needs to be rendered within the specified bounds of the datagrid designobj on that screen.

-Thom

[sambuca]

Thom,

currently its not possible to do what you describe, the JavaMO only displays a list using the phone's default list implementation (usually this fills the whole screen, at least on the SE phones I've seen).

I am looking into the VMC stuff these days, so sooner or later it might be possible ;-) Haven't started coding anything yet, just trying to get a basic understanding of the components to decide how to structure the code.

sambuca

[hari]

hmm..

i know what tschak is talking about. The original code rendered the menu on the phone. I took the comfort in the proof of concept and just used the J2ME list widget. Ideally one would render the menu on the phone and not use the widget. That would allow overlay with the picture that also gets sent. For now I ignore the picture when the list display is active. The Symbian MO just draws the list box over the received image.

best regards,
Hari

[sambuca]

Hari,

good to know. I will try to implement the functionality of the Symbian orbiter as closely as possible in Java, so hopefully this will be possible.

br,
sambuca