Wireless Java Programming with J2ME

This book provides a nicely packaged tutorial for wireless development, beginning with a tour of the acronym-laden world of Java wireless devices based on the Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME). You'll learn about the Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP), which this text centers on, plus the Connected Limited Device Configuration (CLDC). Clearly, this is a market in flux, and the authors do a good job of describing the kinds of J2ME devices available today. They also explain what's different about J2ME development when compared to traditional Java 2 programming.

After this introduction, the book delves into the APIs you'll need to master to use J2ME. The authors create a number of "MIDlets" for wireless devices (such as a PIM and eventually a front end for an online bookstore). They cover the new APIs that are used to program such devices. This includes the higher-level UI library for MIDP devices, which lets developers design for the restricted displays of these devices. They also cover lower-level graphics, which calls for a more do-it-yourself approach to UI design. Illustrated with a calendar utility, they show you how to draw on the screen of a wireless device.

Later sections look at other features that you need to create robust wireless applications in Java, including network connectivity options (like sockets and HTTP), plus storing records in the built-in storage APIs that come built-in on the platform. The book also covers the surprising variety of XML tools that let you add XML support to wireless applications. The centerpiece of this text is the authors' MotoShop--a case study for a wireless front end for an online bookstore, which is used to demonstrate many of the techniques covered earlier in the text. Final sections on SyncML (for synchronizing data between wireless devices) and new support for Java on the popular DoCoMo i-Mode platform help round out this book.

With the wireless marketplace poised for explosive growth, this title can let Java developers get ready for a new kind of Java platform. This book delivers a very solid tour of what an intermediate to advanced programmer needs to get started building the next generation of wireless software in Java. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered:

• Overview of Java development for wireless devices
• Overview of the Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME)
• Key J2ME standards explained: the Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP), Connected Limited Device Configuration (CLDC), and the K Virtual Machine (KVM)
• Using Sun's J2ME Wireless Toolkit and Motorola's MotoSDK for wireless development
• CLDC versus MIDP libraries
• MIDlets
• Limitations for CDLC devices and the KVM
• J2ME security
• Packaging and deploying MIDlets
• Tutorial for user-interface design with the UI for Wireless Devices (including images and event handling)
• High-level UI APIs (including lists and choices, text boxes, alerts, and forms)
• Low-level UI APIs (including drawing graphics shapes and text, double-buffering, plus a calendar example)
• Persistent storage (record stores, adding and deleting records, enumerating records, a sample mobile scheduler)
• Network programming in J2ME MIDP (the Generic Connection Framework, programming with sockets, datagrams, and HTTP)
• XML for wireless applications (survey of wireless XML parsers including SAX 1.0, TinyXML, and NanoXML)
• Case study for a mobile book-ordering application
• Data synchronization (SyncML protocols, a mobile scheduler)
• Reference to CLDC and MIDP class libraries
• NTT DoCoMo's Java for i-Mode introduced