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The RIM Java Development Environment

The RIM simulator may be the most interesting aspect of the RIM JDE.

by clayton crooks
July/August 2001

Developing applications for BlackBerry wireless devices will soon become much easier for Java programmers. Currently in an advanced release, the RIM Java Development Environment for BlackBerry, known as RIM JDE, provides you with a complete set of tools you can use to quickly develop Java applications to run on compatible RIM devices. The tools, which include an Integrated Development Environment, or IDE, a PC-based machine simulation called the RIM Simulator, reference materials, complete documentation and many source code examples, allows developers to build applications in Java 2 Micro Edition, or J2ME.

The RIM JDE’s IDE is basic in features but more than adequate for developing applications. When you first run it, you are presented with a list of sample applications. From this list, you can view one of the eight sample applications that include complete source code. Once you have looked at the source code of the samples, it’s equally easy to test their execution and output. You simply build the applications in the IDE and then load them into the RIM Simulator.

The RIM Simulator is a type of emulator very similar to the Palm OS emulator POSE and may be the most interesting aspect of the complete set of tools in the RIM JDE. It allows you to test any of your applications without having to download the source code to an actual device. The Simulator application functions similarly to an actual RIM device by utilizing several menus that perform actions that occur on the hardware of the device. For instance, there is a track wheel in the Simulator that you can use to open the system menu for the currently running application. If you have a wheel mouse, you can use the wheel to simulate the track wheel or you can use the up and down arrow keys. In addition to the regular hardware features of devices, the Simulator also uses the file system to simulate a wireless modem, allowing you to test the communications functionality of an application without actually connecting to a radio network. These advantages are obvious, as you won’t need any hardware or even a network account for development.

The reference materials and documentation included with the RIM JDE is outstanding–especially important for Java developers that are new to the platform as creating applications for RIM wireless handhelds is different than developing for most devices. Due to the device’s inherent constraints, you must make sure to effectively minimize your use of system space, memory and power consumption, which requires you to optimize your code for size and memory usage while generally disregarding issues that relate to an application’s execution speed. The advantages to great documentation and examples are twofold: They get you up to speed quickly and while doing so, show you how to fully leverage the devices.

Currently, the RIM JDE is available only for Windows-based PCs. To use it, you must have a minimum of a Pentium III processor operating at 500MHz or better, 64 MB of RAM and Windows 98 or better along with the Java Development Kit 2, version 1.3. These requirements are actually very basic and most developers will probably already have machines with these capabilities. Java programmers looking at the BlackBerry market will be pleasantly surprised with this toolkit, freely available at http://developers.rim.net.

Clayton Crooks is an independent software developer. Contact him at crooks@planetc.com.