Lab BlackBerry Example

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This lab example allows you to understand the process of building a BlackBerry application using Java Plug-in for Eclipse

Step 1.

File->New->Others->BlackBerry Project

Note: If you want really to learn how to build a BB app, then in the wizard choose the Empty Application option.

The structure of BB project will be defined, but as the level on code generation, one will get only an empty Java app, with a code similar with this:

package mypackage;

public class MyApp {
    /**
     * Entry point for application
     * @param args Command line arguments (not used)
     */ 
    public static void main(String[] args){
    }
}

You have to extend UiApplication. This class extends the UiApplication class, providing a graphical use interface. You have to import import net.rim.device.api.ui.UiApplication;

Let us suppose that you want your application to have two screens and you want to switch from a screen to another using a button. Thus, you have to define a variable of type Screen to keep track of the Screen object and a variable of type ButtonField.

You need also to importi net.rim.device.api.ui.component.ButtonField;

---

Step 2.

In the main method create a new instance of the application and make the currently running thread the application's event dispatch thread.

import net.rim.device.api.ui.UiApplication;
import net.rim.device.api.ui.component.ButtonField;

     public class MyApp extends UiApplication {
         private MyScreen _screen;
         private ButtonField _nextScreenButton;

         public static void main(String[] args) {
             MyApp theApp = new MyApp();
             theApp.enterEventDispatcher();
}

---

Step 3.

When the constructor of the MyApp class is defined, the graphical objects must be build.

Thus, _screen object will be an instance of a Screen class. The _nextScreenButton object will be an instance of ButtonField class.

In the BB app any field object could specify a listener for changes to this field by invoking the method

public void setChangeListener(FieldChangeListener listener) Each field can have only one change listener object. The param listener is the object to listen for field changes.

The FieldChangeListener is the istener interface for handling Field change events. The interface has only one method:

void fieldChanged(Field field, int context)

We want in our app, when the user click the button the method to create a new Screen object and to push it to the user through the invocation of

pushScreen(new NextScreen()); where the NextScreen is a class that will define the next screen of the app.

Thus the constructor of our app will look like:

	public MyApp() {
		// Push a screen onto the UI stack for rendering.
		_screen = new MyScreen();
		_nextScreenButton = new ButtonField("Go to Next Screen",
				ButtonField.FIELD_HCENTER | ButtonField.CONSUME_CLICK);
		
		_nextScreenButton.setChangeListener(new FieldChangeListener() {
			
			public void fieldChanged(Field field, int context) {
				pushScreen(new NextScreen());
				
			}
		});
		
		_screen.add(_nextScreenButton);
		pushScreen(_screen);
	}

At this point, your app has the MyApp class completed and it looks like:

package mypackage;

import net.rim.device.api.ui.Field;
import net.rim.device.api.ui.FieldChangeListener;
import net.rim.device.api.ui.UiApplication;
import net.rim.device.api.ui.component.ButtonField;

public class MyApp extends UiApplication {

	private MyScreen _screen;
	private ButtonField _nextScreenButton;


	public static void main(String[] args) {
		
		MyApp theApp = new MyApp();
		theApp.enterEventDispatcher();
	}

	
	public MyApp() {
		// Push a screen onto the UI stack for rendering.
		_screen = new MyScreen();
		_nextScreenButton = new ButtonField("Go to Next Screen",
				ButtonField.FIELD_HCENTER | ButtonField.CONSUME_CLICK);
		
		_nextScreenButton.setChangeListener(new FieldChangeListener() {
			
			public void fieldChanged(Field field, int context) {
				pushScreen(new NextScreen());
				
			}
		});
		
		_screen.add(_nextScreenButton);
		pushScreen(_screen);
	}
}

---

---

Step 4.

Two screen objects must be built for the app. They will be instances of classes that extend the MainScreen class. The MainScreen provides default standard behavior for BlackBerry GUI applications.

The first screen besides the title and a RichTextField object will also implement the close() method. The code will look like this in a new file called MyScreen.java

package mypackage;

import net.rim.device.api.ui.Field;
import net.rim.device.api.ui.component.Dialog;
import net.rim.device.api.ui.component.LabelField;
import net.rim.device.api.ui.component.RichTextField;
import net.rim.device.api.ui.container.MainScreen;

public final class MyScreen extends MainScreen {
	
	public MyScreen() {
		setTitle(new LabelField("FIRST",
				LabelField.USE_ALL_WIDTH));
		add(new RichTextField("Hello to FIRST!",
				Field.NON_FOCUSABLE));
	}
	
	public void close() {
		Dialog.alert("Close this app!");
		super.close();
	}
	
}

---

Step 5.

The second screen must have a title, textfield, and button to let the user go back to the first screen. For the title one could use:

 void net.rim.device.api.ui.container.MainScreen.setTitle(Field arg0)

for the field, you can build a LabelField object with

 net.rim.device.api.ui.component.LabelField
 LabelField(Object arg0, long arg1)

Thus, to set the title of the screen you can write the instruction:

 setTitle(new LabelField("Second Screen !", LabelField.USE_ALL_WIDTH));