NewAndNoteworthy in Milestone 6 of the Mobility Pack

JSR-172 Stub Compiler Rewritten

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.

Visual Designer 2

The new version of Visual Mobile Designer is included.

Major changes:

• does not have Screen Designer, SVG components
• new style of Flow Designer, Inspector, Properties, Palette
• supports MIDP-2.0 components only

Designer project has its wiki home page at MobilityDesignerHome with detailed documentation.

Designer 1

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.

Creating a New File

Designer 2 introduces new file templates:

• "MIDP | Visual MIDlet" for creating visual midlets - represent a MIDlet
• "MIDP | Visual Design" for creating visual designs - represent a fragment of mobile application that could be used by MIDlets

File template from Designer 1 are deprecated but still visible and usable as before.

New Style

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:

• Advanced - contains list of all properties available for a component. All properties of all components have a specialized property editor which also allow you to specify an user-code as their value if possible.
• Basic - "nicer" property editors of most used properties e.g. big text-area for editing the text of a textBox.

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

Flow Designer

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:

• Nodes - usually Displayable component or flow-significant non-visual objects
• Pins - usually Commands or non-visual objects that represents a particular place in the source code
• Edges - represents a flow action e.g. switching a displayable, executing of a defined user-code, ...
• Badges - icons assigned to nodes, pins which represents a special behaviour assigned to a particular node or pin e.g. "Go to Previous Screen Action"

Start and Resume MIDlet

The MIDlet can be started or resumed. Now you can handle both cases independently.

Entry Point, Call Point component

"Visual Design" files allows you to create fragments of mobile application. To navigate throught VisualMIDlet and multiple VisualDesigns there are two new components:

• Entry Point - represents a method in designed class. The method contains a code specified by an action assigned to it "Entry Called" pin.
• Call Point - represents a code fragment. When a transition is pointing to the Call Point, then the specified code fragment is executed.

If, Switch 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.

List Action

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.

Previous Screen Action

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.

Analyzer

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.

Attachments

analyzer.png		40044 bytes
call-entry-code.png		14619 bytes
call-entry-flow.png		12130 bytes
dialog.JPG		61563 bytes
dialog.png		183299 bytes
file-templates.png		30534 bytes
if-switch-code.png		41237 bytes
if-switch-flow.png		21244 bytes
interface.JPG		135818 bytes
list-action-code.png		52583 bytes
list-action-flow.png		15323 bytes
overview.png		84282 bytes
previous-screen-action-flow.png		16694 bytes
start-resume-code.png		22878 bytes
start-resume-flow.png		10356 bytes