Kicking Butt with MIDP and MSA: Creating Great Mobile Applications Review

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Kicking Butt with MIDP and MSA: Creating Great Mobile Applications ReviewI really hate Netbeans, but in spite of that fact, and the fact that this book makes heavy use of the technology, I dug into the book. I have a real interest in learning about the development of Java programs on cell phones past the writing of small local applications and games, and this book seemed to fit the bill. I'm the happy owner of many of the author's past books, and this one didn't disappoint me either. At first glance parts of the book look rather sparse. That is because, for one, Knudsen doesn't see the point in just regurgitating the standard. The second reason is that much of the source code is on the book's accompanying website. If you are interested in writing mobile applications with Java, I highly recommend this book. I discuss the book's contents chapter by chapter as follows:
Section: I Getting Started
Chapter 1. Overview - explains why MIDP is such a good fit for mobile devices and describes how MIDP and the rest of the band fit together to form a powerful platform for mobile applications.
Chapter 2. Tools - Building MIDP applications is surprisingly easy. This chapter describes several development alternatives and explains some of the magic that these tools provide. Also justifies Netbeans, which I dislike, but it's a fair trade-off to play with such cool stuff.
Chapter 3. Quick Start -Describes a few simple parts of MIDP so that you can get something running right away. You'll also have a basic scaffolding upon which to build your later knowledge.
Chapter 4. Core APIs - Don't assume that you know all this stuff, even if you're experienced with Java technology on the desktop or in a server environment. The constraints of small devices dictate that these APIs are more compact and less rich than their desktop counterparts.
Section: II The Lives of MIDlets
Chapter 5. The MIDlet Habitat - learn the details of how MIDlets live and die and how devices prevent bad MIDlets from performing bad deeds.
Chapter 6. Starting MIDlets Automatically - Incoming network connections can start a MIDlet. For example, a Short Message Service (SMS) message arriving on a certain port or an incoming socket connection could launch a MIDlet. MIDlets can request to be started at a specific time. MIDlets can respond to specific types of content. For example, an audio player MIDlet can be set to handle one or more audio file types. Other applications can ask the device to launch a MIDlet to handle a certain type of content.
Section: III User Interface
Chapter 7. Basic User Interface - This chapter and Chapter 8 discuss the screens that LCDUI, the user interface, supplies and their supporting baggage.
Chapter 8. More User Interface
Section: IV Graphics
Chapter 9. Creating Custom Screens - If the plain old LCDUI screens are not sufficiently jazzy or flexible for your application, you can create your own screen using a canvas. It's more work, but it's more fun. You can control almost all of the drawing on the display and you get fine-grained event information as well.
Chapter 10. Custom Items - A middle ground lies between the easy path of canned LCDUI screens and the raw bravado of using Canvas. Custom items are your own items that can be placed into standard forms. A custom item is very similar to a canvas, but it has some additional equipment to allow it to be part of a form.
Chapter 11. Using the Game API - One popular category of Java ME applications is games. Even when faster data networks make other types of applications more popular, games will always be an important part of the Java ME ecosystem. MIDP has a Game API designed to help you create 2D action or board games. It has a souped-up canvas and supports building a screen using multiple layers. The entire API consists of five classes that are discussed in this chapter.
Chapter 12. Scalable Vector Graphics - The shortcomings of images on small devices are addressed by JSR 226, the Scalable 2D Vector Graphics API for J2ME. Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is a kind of XML for describing pictures. Because it is essentially a programming language, SVG can also describe animations and user interactions. JSR 226 is a standard API for displaying and manipulating SVG documents.
Chapter 13. 3D Graphics - The Mobile 3D Graphics (M3G) API, gives MIDlets the ability to show 3D content. It is a scaled-down version of the desktop Java platform 3D API. The M3G API is a scene graph API, which means it knows how to render scenes that are described as a hierarchy of groups and objects. How to use the API is discussed here.
Section: V Storage and Resources
Chapter 14. Record Stores - MSA devices provide three ways to work with persistent storage. The first way is with record stores, which are tiny databases that contain records. The official name for this API is the Record Management System (RMS), which is covered in this chapter.
Chapter 15. Reading and Writing Files - MIDP devices often have some kind of hierarchical file system. The PDA Optional Packages define a FileConnection API that provides access to a device's file system. It is a mandatory part of MSA and MSA subset. The FileConnection API is the subject of this chapter.
Chapter 16. Contacts and Calendars - The Personal Information Management (PIM) API provides access to contact lists, calendars, and to-do lists on mobile devices. The API is the subject of this chapter.
Chapter 17. Mobile Internationalization - A fancy phrase that means making your application run in different languages. Internationalization is handled by Mobile Internationalization API, the subject of this chapter.
Section: VI Networking
Chapter 18. The Generic Connection Framework - All network access in MIDP devices works through the Generic Connection Framework (GCF). The fundamental idea of GCF is very simple. Your application supplies a connection string, and GCF hands back the corresponding input and output streams.
Chapter 19. Text and Multimedia Messaging - This chapter covers the Wireless Messaging API (WMA) which extends this capability of transmitting and receiving text messages to MIDlets.
Chapter 20. Bluetooth and OBEX - teaches you the fundamentals of Bluetooth communication but does not attempt to cover the Bluetooth and OBEX (Object Exchange) APIs in meticulous detail.
Chapter 21. XML and Web Services - describes how to use the XML parsing API, how to call Web services using the JAX-RPC API, and how to work with RESTful Web services. Examples will show how to parse a Rich Site Summary (RSS) feed and how to write a RESTful client for the Flickr photo-sharing service.
Chapter 22. Session Initiation Protocol - Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a standard way to set up a call, videoconference, or other session between two network endpoints. This chapter is a broad overview.
Section: VII Multimedia
Chapter 23. Playing and Recording Sound and Video - Discusses the Mobile Media API (MMAPI) for working with images, audio, and video. There are some good detailed examples here.
Chapter 24. Advanced Multimedia - expands on the promise of MMAPI with 3D audio, image processing and encoding, camera and radio control. The basics are in the book, the online software has more detailed examples.
Section: VIII Security and Transactions
Chapter 25. Smart Cards and Cryptography - an introduction to the Security and Trust Services APIs (SATSA). SATSA actually contains four separate APIs. Two of these are for communicating with smart cards, while the other two relate to cryptography. Only the basics are covered.
Chapter 26. Mobile Payments - discusses The Payment API, which provides MIDlets with a simple API for making payments.
Chapter 27. Know Where You Are - discusses the Location API for using GPS to determine where you are or where you want to go.
Chapter 28. Application Architecture - a good capstone chapter presents ideas to help you with your application design. This chapter gets you in the right frame of mind to design your own application effectively and imaginatively.Kicking Butt with MIDP and MSA: Creating Great Mobile Applications Overview
The release of MIDP 2.0 and the introduction of the new Mobile Service Architecture (MSA) are generating momentum for the Java ME platform. As more and more Java-enabled mobile devices become available and more service providers become open to third-party development, the demand for customized applications will grow dramatically. Now, there's a practical, realistic guide to building MIDP 2.0/MSA applications that are robust, responsive, maintainable, and fun.

Long-time Java ME author Jonathan Knudsen offers real solutions for the complex challenges of coding efficiency, application design, and usability in constrained mobile environments. Experienced Java developers will master MIDP 2.0 and MSA programming through clear, carefully designed examples. Downloadable code is available for both NetBeans Mobility Pack and the Sun Java Wireless Toolkit. Kicking Butt with MIDP and MSA's wide-ranging content covers:

Pushing MIDP's limits, and exploiting MSA's full power
Using MIDlets, Forms, commands, core classes, and invocation
Building effective mobile user interfaces
Designing graphics with the Canvas, the Game API, SVG, and 3D
Providing storage and resources: record stores, FileConnection, and PDA PIM
Internationalizing mobile applications
Networking via WMA, Bluetooth, Web services, and SIP
Parsing XML documents
Implementing audio and advanced multimedia
Securing mobile applications with SATSA and the Payment API
Building advanced location-based applications
Designing applications for multiple devices
Creating end-to-end mobile application architectures


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