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J2ME :: Developing MIDlets

I’ve started recently to develop games for mobile phones. To assist me keep track on things I found helpful, I’m going to post links and downloads here. If you have nothing to do with programming MIDlets I find it hard to believe you’ll find this page interesting.


Downloads:

* Note: Remember - Sun released MIDP 2.0 already, but very few phones in the market supports it yet. Therefore, if you wish to develop games or other midlets for today phones you MUST develop on MIDP 1.0. Bummer, isn’t it?

SDKs & Emulators:

  • J2ME[tm] Wireless Toolkit (Essential) - Sun’s free toolkit for building MIDP applications.
  • Nokia SDK and Emulator
  • Motorola iDEN SDK 3.0.0 Update 1 for J2ME(TM) Technology
  • Article: MIDP Emulators (broad overview of available MIDP emulators)
  • Article: Emulators list on a J2ME Blog

    IDEs:

  • Sun[tm] ONE Studio 4 update 1 - Sun ONE is an excellent IDE for java. Get the mobile edition.
  • Eclipse IDE (opensource java development env.)
  • j2me Plugin For Eclipse IDE
  • WebSphere Application Server Version 5.0 trial (Excellent IDE but TrialWare)
    Article: IDEs for Wireless Java (a little old)

    Other Downloads:

  • Additional MIDP 2.0 Source bundle - as described here.
  • Sun’s J2ME download page
  • RetroGuard (Opensource obfuscater)
  • J2ME Archive - Including downloads, links, FAQs and example code.

    Motorola Related (used for my 4804 project)

  • Motorola SDKs:
  • Motorola iDEN Java Application Loader
  • Motorola Java Application Loader Lite (JAL Lite) (Use Hebrew Download)
  • Sample Code
  • How do I debug on an actual device (i85s/i50sx)?

    Documentation and Dev Portals

    Documentation

  • API Docs Page (Download the MIDP 1.0 API)
  • Java Tutorial from SUN (inc. full details)

    Companies Development Portals

  • Sun’s MIDP Development - Sun’s MIDP Development main page.
  • Sun Wireless Forum
  • Forum Nokia - Developers delight.
  • Siemens Developers village
  • Motorola iDEN - Motorola Developers section
  • T-Mobile Developers Center
  • MicroJava - Excellent website for j2me developers.

    Helpful Articles

    Beginners

  • MIDP programming with J2ME - covers all you need to begin
  • J2ME Cell Phone Development - Colin Fahey’s tutorial for creating and deploying J2ME applications
  • An Introduction to Developing for Mobile Devices Using J2ME/MIDP (Part 1)
  • Creating Games using J2ME

    RMS

  • Open, close, read and write to persistent storage
  • RMS - 1000 records, very slow reading of data

    Menus

  • General-Purpose Dialogs for MIDP (forms)

    Game Development

  • Gamasutra Resource Guide: Mobile Games
        - Developing Action-based Mobile Games
        - Games on the Run: Comparing J2ME and BREW for Wireless Gaming
        - Postmortem: Games Kitchen’s Wireless Pets
        - Product Review: Metrowerk’s Codewarrior Wireless Studio 7
        - Developing for Two Phone Extremes: Comparing the Nokia 6310i and the Nokia 3650

  • Mobilecore: A Cross-Platform Framework For ARM-Based Mobile Games
  • The Birth Of The Mobile MMOG
  • Postcard from GDC Mobile 2003: Mobile Challenges Mean Opportunities
  • PowerPoint Presentation: Practical Issues in Implementing Mobile Multi-player Games
  • 2001 resource guide - Mobile Game Postmortem: Ngame’s Chop Suey Kung Fu
  • 2001 resource guide - Wireless Entertainment: The State of Play 2001
  • 2001 resource guide - Is That a Game in Your Pocket, Or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

    Graphics

  • Animating Images in MIDP (inc. source)
  • MIDP Canvas Repainting
  • Building Splash Screens for MIDlets
  • Efficient Display Matrix

    Networking

  • Wireless Messaging API Basics - Sending/Receiving SMS
  • MIDP Network Programming using HTTP and the Connection Framework
  • Interrupting/Cancelling a HttpConnection? (inc. code)

    Audio

  • Load a sound trough http
  • Audio for Mobile Devices

    Other

  • All J2ME (Wireless) Tech Tips
  • Obfuscating a J2ME MIDlet suite (Installing RetroGuard instructions)
  • Building J2ME Applications for the Extended Enterprise
  • IBM’s Mobile 3D Viewer
  • IBM: Secrets of the Wireless elite - A continued series of interviews with leading figures in the industry.

    Reviews

  • Wireless Gaming Review - Mobile Games reviews. Very good.
  • MIDlets Review - Mobile Games reviews

    Selling Sites

  • Wireless Games
  • THQ Wireless
  • N-Gage - The Official Site
  • Midlet.org

    Companies

    Mobile Game Development Companies

    Israel

  • Cellmate - Israeli company.
  • GameBit
  • Cash-U

    World

  • MacroSpace - UK based (Excellent) developer.
  • Sumea - Finland’s leading developer
  • GameVil - Korea. One of the best. (English site, less content)
  • Kiloo - Developer of Worms mobile, Hugo and Popstars
  • Mr. Goodliving
  • The Games Kitchen

    Publishers & Portals

  • EuroFun
  • Gameloft
  • JamDat

    Others

  • Wireless World Forum
  • Mobile Mag - Magazine
  • Wireless Developer
  • InfoSync
  • Nextel Developers section
  • CellMania
  • 4th Pass
  • All Net Devices
  • mBusiness Daily
  • Wireless Dev Net
  • Wireless in a nutshell
  • Wireless Week
  • Electronic Gaming Business Articles - At least 1 interesting article each issue - if not more.

    Multiplayer engines
    Multi-Player MIDP Game Programming v1.0
    Terraplay
    Butterfly
    Demivision
    Xadra

    Good Development sites to check:

  • Mobile Entertainment Analyst (a WGR site).
  • IBM Wireless Section (Good Articles and nice Tutorials)

    Mobile Alliance Organization - a rising union of developers.

    Interesting Reading

  • Martin Frost (Macrospace) and EmuX
  • Weerwolf’s Current State of Mobile Entertainment (PDF)
  • Nokia’s Sucess Stories Some good reading on companies.
  • Nokia: Case Study: THQ’s Worms
  • Nokia: SUMEA - Game Developer Point of View
  • Nokia: Developing Java Games for Platform Portability: Case­ Study: Miki’s World
  • Case Study: Macrospace and Cartoon Network
  • EGB Roundtable: Branding to Go: Pros & Cons of Licensing in the Mobile Space

  • 12 Comments so far

    1. Beders
      July 12th, 2003

      | 2:24 pm

      Thanks for your little collection of useful J2ME links!
      Helped a lot!

    2. October 7th, 2003

      | 2:24 am

      Yo j00 where #1 on google.com and thanks for the links

      Lata

    3. January 17th, 2004

      | 5:10 am
    4. Amit Chhabra
      April 28th, 2004

      | 10:13 am

      Dear Developer,
      I have been through your home page.It’s a gr8 resource for new midp and experienced programer.
      Really you have done a gr8 and appericiable effort to collect these valuable resources.I have been working on midp since last 2 years i have been through each and every resource but never tried to collect it as you have collected.
      Really thanksfor giving such a valuable resource.
      Thanks and regards,
      Amit Chhabra.

    5. Amit Chhabra
      April 28th, 2004

      | 10:14 am

      Dear Developer,
      I have been through your home page.It’s a gr8 resource for new midp and experienced programer.
      Really you have done a gr8 and appericiable effort to collect these valuable resources.I have been working on midp since last 2 years i have been through each and every resource but never tried to collect it as you have collected.
      Really thanksfor giving such a valuable resource.
      Thanks and regards,
      Amit Chhabra.

    6. civax
      May 17th, 2004

      | 5:24 am

      http://www.convert-ringtones.com/

      Converts sounds.
      Like from Midi to wav, noktxt (ott) and many other formats.

    7. vikram
      June 29th, 2004

      | 2:55 am

      hai Civax,
      Your Website looks good. The site has lot of J2me Stuff and which are very usefull .

      Good.. Job…

    8. stefan
      July 15th, 2004

      | 10:26 am

      Hi!
      Your site is great, small and not confusing samples, that is what i think most developers looking for and not alot of rubbish as all to often on other sites, I thinking of start a site like this but for iis + wml but that would be for newbies.Less is more.

      //stefan

    9. 4
      September 17th, 2004

      | 8:08 am
    10. 4
      September 18th, 2004

      | 10:47 am
    11. 4
      September 18th, 2004

      | 11:31 am
    12. wq
      November 13th, 2004

      | 2:34 am

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