MIDP takes great care in the design of the javax.microedition.lcdui package to assist developers in creating portable applications. In practice, however, it seems that one of two things often occurs. Either high-level controls are too restrictive for what an application requires, or, despite all the attention to portability, the high-level components still fail to provide 100% portability. In either case developers are left to correct the problem by writing custom logic to address the differences between platforms. Since many of the limitations of the high-level controls are in place to provide greater portability, is the high-level user interface meeting the needs of developers?
Take the High Road when Creating MIDP User Interfaces
MIDP supports a user interface framework that caters to mobile devices by providing a number of built-in controls. Find out how these controls enable the portability of applications between devices.
by David Hemphill
June 3, 2004
ne of the biggest challenges of writing software for mobile devices is creating user interfaces that work across a number of devices. As an application is deployed from device to device, developers face challenges due to changing environment parameters and device specifications. Screen sizes and pixel resolutions vary. Some devices are monochrome, while others support color. Some devices have two softkeys (keys on the device keypad that map to application commands) for user input, others have three—or perhaps one softkey and a scroll wheel to move through a list of options.
MIDP strives to solve these problems by providing a framework and a collection of user interface controls. These user interface APIs are found in the javax.microedition.lcdui package.
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ne of the biggest challenges of writing software for mobile devices is creating user interfaces that work across a number of devices. As an application is deployed from device to device, developers face challenges due to changing environment parameters and device specifications. Screen sizes and pixel resolutions vary. Some devices are monochrome, while others support color. Some devices have two softkeys (keys on the device keypad that map to application commands) for user input, others have three—or perhaps one softkey and a scroll wheel to move through a list of options.
