Java Midlet, writing your own mobile phone programs

So after 8 years of walking with the same old mobile phone (back then the life cycle of phones was longer ) it was time for a new one, the Nokia 6500.  A world of difference but I have to say its easy to get used to a color screen, camera, build in mp3 player and ofcourse the java games!

I like the idea you can write your own programs on your phone, adds an extra dimension of control! So I downloaded the Java Wireless Toolkit (2.5.1.) because of the platform you can’t write normal java applications but you have to write MIDlets (basically a stripped down / lean version of Java Virtual Machine) since you are not writing for a pc but a cellphone (although that difference is fading rapidly).

I also tried development environments like NetBeans (like the visual approach) and Eclipse for mobile applications but really all you need to begin and what I am using is

(1) notepad and (2) JWT (Java Wireless Toolkit)

then follow this
(3) quickstart: http://developers.sun.com/mobility/midp/articles/wtoolkit/

and look then at the code of this
(4) example: http://developers.sun.com/mobility/midp/articles/getstart/

I had some trouble after having packeged (Project/package/create package) my program into a jar file it would say ‘invalid application’ on my phone. This had to do with the API platform selection which was set on MIDP2.1 but my phone only had support up to MIDP2.0, so after changing that option (under custom packaging options) it would run like a charm!

<This post is a work in progress>

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