The old version of Visual Mobile Designer has been removed from Mobility Pack. Now Mobility Pack has a new version of Designer only. Still there is possibility to open the source code of old design file.
Both Designer are using different file format. Therefore there is an action for converting an old design file to the new file format. The conversion does not cover all functionality. We would like to tests it as much as possible therefore we would like to ask you for a help with testing the conversion.
You can invoke conversion, using "Convert to new version" popup menu action on an old design file node.
Converter dialog let you specify a name for a converted file and guides you through the conversion.
Now you can see the converted file in the same package. Please, read conversion report carefully to finish the conversion successful. Some steps may require manual changes in the source code.
Please, let us know about any conversion problem that you experience.
Designer is generating a code with JavaDoc for each method. Also all generated sections are folded by default.
Commands and Resources analyzers has been merged together.
1) Multiple configurations can be selected. In such case navigator will show intersection of abilities assigned to selected configurations. Abilities with different values will be shown with "Multiple different values" as a value. Selected configurations must be part of the same project
2) Right click on abilities navigator shows a popup with following actions
a) Add - adds an ability to all of the selected configurations
b) Remove - remove set of selected abilities from all of the selected configurations
c) Copy - copy set of selected abilities to internal buffer
d) Paste - paste abilities from buffer to a set of selected configurations
running on single selected configuration
1) Run configuration
2) Debug configuration
running on multiple selected configurations even across different projects
3) Build selected configurations
4) Clean&Build selected configurations
5) Clean selected configurations
6) Deploy selected configurations
The Visual Mobile Designer has a new analyzer. It inspect a design and reports all component, properties and values which are not available in MIDP-1.0.
Create predefined deployment profile using Tools | Mobile Deployment.
Open project properties. Choose deployment profile. You can also override the deployment settings.
Close project properties. Right click on the project and choose Deploy.
The application gets deployed
On the phone, open the application browser and run the application

available since 6.0M10
You can leave default value for Application Location - it is a folder on the device where jar and jad files will be copied into, or you can specify another one.
Once you have set up the deployment method, right click on the project and choose deploy:
The application gets uploaded and installed on the device. Follow any instruction that appear on the device screen:
Run the application using Start | Programs | Sun Java | <application>
Major upgrade of SVG Viewer supporting basic editing of SVG content. The SVG Composer is not intended to be a replacement for SVG authoring tools, it is rather targeted on a developer who needs to adjust and modify existing SVG graphics and make it work with his/hers code.
Template selection for each new project configuration is now a tree structure. The tree is composed from multiple providers (ConfigurationTemplateFactories).
Any 3rd-party module can now plug in a factory providing information source of new project configurations. That factory might be for example a wrapper of some device database.
Attached project msjdd.zip
contains a sample module showing how easy is to implement a custom device database provider now.
Add Project Configuration Dialog now supports multiple providers in a tree.
Add More... action has been added to quickly add multiple project configurations at once.
Duplicatation of project configuration has been improved. Different dialog asking for new prefix and suffix appears when multiple project configurations are selected. New project configuration names are then derived from the selected plus prefix and suffix.
Configuration selection dialog then appears. User selection is persistent in project private properties.
Build process does not stop when one of the project configurations build fails. It continues and fails at the end with summary message of passed and failed configurations.
It renders almost all components and supports in-place editing, tasks menu. The UI has been improved. Here is the screenshot:
The following screen-shot shows the New Tiled Layer dialog which allows user to create a new tiled layer using the appropriate image resource with the correct tile size.
Once a new tiled layer is created it can be edited using the available visual editor. This allows the user to modify the contents of the tiled layer and receive instant visual feedback. The tiled layer editor also includes support for animated tiles.
Another layer type supported by the Game Builder is Sprite. In the gaming context, sprites usually serve as animated characters or objects. The screen-shot below shows the dialog used to create a new sprite.
Game Builder treats sprites as a collection of animated sequences where each sprite can be contain a number of sequences. The sprite editor allows editing and previewing of multiple animated sequences simultaneously.Below is a screen-shot showing sprite editor in action.
The scene editor is provided to organize all layers (sprites and tiled layers) together into scenes.
Four new custom components in the Palette of new Visual Designer:
Palette with new custom components
File Browser - File Browser custom component lets the user list files and directories. It's uses FileConnection? Optional Package (JSR 75). The FileConnection? Optional Package APIs give J2ME devices access to file systems residing on mobile devices, primarily access to removable storage media such as external memory cards.
Login Screen - The login screen custom components performs some interaction behind the scenes for validation purposes.
SMS Composer - provides an easy and convenient way to send SMS message from Java ME application.
PIM Browser - Uses PIM API which gives access to the Personal Information Management (PIM) database including to-do lists, calendars and contact data. Requires JSR 75.
Example MIDP application with new custom components
Note: Preprocessor is fully working for all Java sources within Mobility Project however for Matisse sources there is no editor support yet. There is temporary missing preprocessor coloring, code completion, error annotation and preprocessor contextual actions in Matisse source editor.
Sample of preprocessor usage in CDC development is on the screenshot.
CDC Platform Support from CDC Pack was completely migrated to Mobility Pack. You can install and manage the same set of CDC platforms as in CDC Pack 5.5.
Mobility Project now supports seemless build, execution and debugging of all supported CDC platforms.
Mobility Project Customizer has been extended about many new panels. Most of the panels are now triggered by selected platform - so you see them only when you select appropriate platform. All the customizer pannels fully support project configurations.
Two of the new panels including "Advanced" sub-dialog are on the following screenshots.
Ant Build System now supports multiple sequencies of build targets. One sequence is invoked for project execution and debugging (init ... compile ... jar ... run or debug). The other sequence is invoked for project build (init ... compile ... jar ... build). This change helps to distinguish between the build steps required for execution and debugging and the build steps necessary for the final application distribution build.
Project customizer panels can now be displayed by state of any trigger project property (f.ex.: platform.trigger, platform.type, etc...). This feature helps to improve usability and eliminate all inappropriate customizer panels according to given project context.
Following screenshots show how two different customizer panels are switched by context of selected platform.

Original deployment API was designed to deploy Jar and Jad. The modification now allows to specify folder to deploy (deployment.directory) and wildcard pattern (deployment.patternset). This change applies to generic deployment types (like Ftp, Scp, WebDAV, etc...), all device-specific depoyment types stay untouched. For example SonyEriccson CLCD/MIDP Device Deployment plugin still deploys Jad and Jar only.
There is sample of the new script performing FTP deployment by the new API.
Some of the customizer panels had to be redesigned to better fit the platform independent style. One of the example is on the screenshots. Jad-specific settings were move from Deployment panel to Jad/Attributes panel.
The stub compiler for Web Services API (JSR172) has been completely rewritten from scratch. The new generator has support for Base64 type. It is able to parse documentation from methods. The UI is still as simple as possible. The generated code changed to be more usefull.
note : the Sample MIDlet isn't generated yet. We do expect the functionality back when the Visual Designer 2 will be stabilized.
The new version of Visual Mobile Designer is included.
Major changes:
Designer project has its wiki home page at MobilityDesignerHome with detailed documentation.
The new version is not a full replacement of the old version yet. Therefore both versions are included together in the release.
Old version files are handled by Designer 1 without any change of the behavior from previous release.
Designer 2 introduces new file templates:
File template from Designer 1 are deprecated but still visible and usable as before.
Flow Designer has a new style of graphics. The new style should naturally improve readiness of the design. New algorithm is used for automatic layout of a design. Allows quick visual navigator for big designs. Shows all commands of all components (even one assigned to Items).
Inspector shows all components in a document and allows you to created whole application without touching any other window.
Properties window have two tabs:
Palette marks components which are not available on the classpath of a project. Does not allow to add user components yet.
File templates of Designer 1 still exist but have been deprecated. The Designer 2 contains
In Flow Designer, not only Displayable components are visible. There are also non-visual components which allows handling specific situation like Mobile Device. There are 4 basic types of visual objects in the Flow Designer:
The MIDlet can be started or resumed. Now you can handle both cases independently.
"Visual Design" files allows you to create fragments of mobile application. To navigate throught VisualMIDlet and multiple VisualDesigns there are two new components:
"If" represents a flow forking based on a specified condition. "Switch" is similar "If" component but you have to specified cases by assigning "Switch Case" components.
In Designer 1, you have been able to create a transition for each List Element. This functionality is still available in the Designer 2. Additionally there is a possibility to handle all List Element independent as a single transaction.
The "List.SELECT_COMMAND" (assigned to each list) is hidden by default. You can show it by changing "Show Select Command" property of the "MyList | Assigned Commands | List.SELECT_COMMAND" component in the Inspector. Then you will see the special "List.SELECT_COMMAND" in the Flow. You can use it then same way as any other command.
By default "List.SELECT_COMMAND" has "List Action" action assigned. This action mean that the "myListAction" method is called. The method contains a code which is performing actions of assigned list elements based on the list selection. Use you assign "List Action" to any other command in your List component.
The "Previous Screen Action" is an action which switch current displayable to a displayable which was show before the current one. This help in creating wizard like application. You are just modeling "Next" and "Finish" button. All "Back" command can have "Previous Screen Action" assigned. The action is shown as an icon instead of an edge.
The Analyzer panel provides design analyzes. For example when you create a command and not assign it to any displayable, then it is not used and could be removed from the design. Those commands are hard since you would have to search throught all displayables. With "Unused Commands" analyzer, you can do it with a single click at "Remove Selected" button. More analyzers will come in the future.
Due to changes in NetBeans' java infrastructure (Retouche) Mobility Pack is in process of integration of this new infrastructure. The builds are not working right now and most of the functionality was removed from dailies. It will be added back till Milestone 6.
Mobility Pack will skip the Milestone 5.
In the Mobility Deployment Manager it is possible to create several instances of each deployment type (for example several Ftp server connections).
In the Deployment category of project properties there is a new combo to select the deployment instance prepared in Mobility Deployment Manager. Some of the deployment options are still project-specific (for example path on the Ftp server) so they are customizable in project properties.
The buildsystem of NetBeans Mobility was completely changed. Now it supports various plugins that can register their customizers and build script fragments. For the standard set of features there is no visible change however when installed an aditional plugins - the magic things begin to happen.
The main reason to introduce these experimental plugins was to demonstrate and verify the capabilities of the new flexible build system. These plugins are not a fixed part of NetBeans Mobility, they are installable separatelly as NBMs, and their sources are open as the rest of NetBeans and Mobility.
This experimental plugin should completelly replace the textual guide how to integrate BlackBerry JDE into NetBeans Mobility.
The plugin teaches NetBeans Mobility how to detect RIM BlackBerry JDE 4.1.0 and 4.2.0, how to build, execute, and debud the application on the emulator, and how to deploy the application on the real BlackBerry device.
All this functionality is transparent for project configurations so each of you project configuration can use different emulator - no matter if BlackBerry or not.
The RIM BlackBerry JDE is now detected and installed automatically.
The debugging works instantly.
And the new deployment plugin delivers your application directly to your device.
This is another proof-of-concept plugin that verifies capabilities of the new build system. Main purpose of this plugin is to allow mobile project library to build one of its project configuration agains Java SE bootstrap libraries. May be you will find another use for this plugin but it is very simple and it is not designed to compete fully-featured Java SE project type.
The only you can specify in this plugin is you main class for execution (if any).
This plugin is pretty much a production quality and will allow the Mobility Pack to recognize MPowerPlayer as a standard Java ME emulator using the regular Add Platform wizard. The operation is completely transparent. Simply build and install in the IDE and then add it using the Java Platform Manager. This should certainly please the Apple users as this is their only option when they decide to develop Java ME applications on their Mac.
SVG support from release 5.5 was merged to trunk. This also means the version of the document is now equal to 5.5, so it is possible to edit the visual designs in both versions of the IDE.
Milestone 4 provides infrastructure for creating code snippets that can be easily inserted into the source code with minimum effort. Some sample code snippets are included in this release but users can add their own using the same approach as described http://platform.netbeans.org/tutorials/nbm-palette-api1.html. The module to modify when adding your own snippets is Mobility Code Snippets inside the Mobility suite.
When adding the snippets make sure you add them to class context otherwise the code will not be compilable. As of this release no analysis is done on the code prior to inserting to avoid this problem.