In this two part series I’m going to try my best to describe how I use Apache Ant and Eclipse to write/debug software for the BlackBerry platform.
Requirements
- BlackBerry JDE 4.1+ (or JDE Component Pack)
- Ant 1.6.x+ (if not using eclipse, or your ide does not support ant)
- Eclipse 3.x (or your ide of choice)
- BlackBerry Ant Tools
Prepare your workspace
This isn’t necessary per-say but you owe it to yourself. First step is adding a user library for the blackberry api. Go to Workspace->Preferences and drill down, Java->Build Path->User Libraries.
Click New and enter “BlackBerry 4.2″ as the library name. Click Add JARs and find your rim api jar (JDE_HOME/lib/net_rim_api.jar). Also be sure to set the javadoc location (JDE_HOME/docs/api). This will give you documentation popups when you do code assist (ctrl+space) and meaningful variable names when using code generation (eg: abstract method stubs).
Setup ant classpath
We will be using a set of ant tasks to automate the build process of our application so download the latest version of BlackBerry Ant Tools and extract the zip somewhere. Where you put bb-ant-tools.jar is up to you but I prefer to put it in my ant lib directory (eclipse/plugins/org.apache.ant_1.6.5/lib). Go to Window->Preferences and drill down, Ant->Runtime. Click Add External JARs and find bb-ant-tools.jar.
That’s it! The workspace is good to go.
Comments 67
Here I got a job for you – be a ‘Teacher’.
Put all this stuff to some actual use.
I am sure there alot of people who would benefit from this.
And you would feel great for doing it.
Posted 25 Jun 2007 at 10:40 am ¶The first required software “BlackBerry JDE 4.1+” is not available for linux. Be sure you have Windows.
Posted 21 Sep 2007 at 8:49 pm ¶Salvador is correct. JDE is not available for Linux. However, if you are able to get yourself a copy of the installed JDE you can use the rapc compiler on Linux or Mac OS X.
Posted 22 Sep 2007 at 10:20 am ¶This is great. Really – love it
My BIG question… I have a jad/jar that converts to COD no probs. However I need to do this in real time on a Linux web server [just the conversion] using rapc. I need to do this as there are parameters we need to pass the installer from the original JAD.
How can we do this?
Posted 04 Oct 2007 at 5:42 am ¶Thx and well done again.
Major,
What kind of paramters do you need to pass to the COD file? As far as I know when compiling a COD file from jad/jar there are no parameters that affect the way the COD file is built.
Then again, I’ve been wrong many times before
If you want to do batch compiling on Linux, you will need:
- Apache Ant
- Java JDK
- Copy of JDE 4.1+
- **Important** the preverify command
That last point is important. The rapc compiler will call this preverify during the compile process. You will find this command in the Sun Wireless Toolkit, or you might find it somewhere on the net if you Google around a bit.
Anyway, once you have all that just use your favorite web scripting language to launch a non-interactive shell to compile:
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 8:21 am ¶“cd /your/project/dir & ant build”
thanks jiGGaK,
We have the COD being created on the server using just the JDE / JDK. I have not worked with or used Ant as yet. The COD is created on the server but fails to run on the BB..
We want to add some custom parameters to the JAD such as:
setting-phonenumber: [value]
settings-name: [value]
The idea is that the user would not need to edit these details themselves and we can preconfigure the package on the server.
This works fine on a non BB device and these values are passed and used in the installation of the JAR [i.e. they can then be found in the settings section of the app]. On BB – these value are ignored unless present in the JAD before creating the COD.
thx for the feedback – all good stuff.
Posted 11 Oct 2007 at 3:00 am ¶Everything works except for stopping on breakpoints. Eclipse attaches fine and I can suspend the whole simulator. It just won’t stop on any breakpoint. Any thoughts?
Posted 07 Dec 2007 at 5:00 pm ¶Danny,
I’ve had mixed success when debugging applications compiled with a version of rapc that differs from the version of the simulator so the only thing I can think of is if you have compiled with 4.2 use the 4.2 simulator.
Also be sure that you have copied over the .debug file along with the .cod file. The JDE will copy a whole bunch of files over so if you want to be extra safe copy the same set of files (the set of files are defined in the build script in the examples).
Apart from that, I guess make sure you are using a recent version of eclipse… that’s all I can think of.
Posted 07 Dec 2007 at 9:26 pm ¶An excellent tutorial, now I’m free from the RIM JDE, well worth the extra time to set this up in eclipse. I got a bit stumped on the compilation phase with a rapc CreateProcess: verify … error=2 issue. I had to add the JDE bin directory to my path environment variable. You may also encounter a similar issue with javac, just make sure your jdk bin directory is also on the path environment variable.
Thank you
Posted 11 Dec 2007 at 8:09 am ¶Hi. Thanks for the turorial. I’m trying to build on OS X and I get the error:
build:
[mkdir] Created dir:
…/build
[rapc] Compiling 10 source files to ca_slashdev_HelloWorld.cod
[rapc] I/O Error: preverify: not found
Can you give me a step-by-step description where to put preverify? I’ve got the preverify-tool from mpowerplayer.com
Posted 06 Jan 2008 at 11:38 am ¶Albert,
You will want to put preverify somewhere in the execution path. An easy way would be to copy it to /usr/bin.
sudo cp preverify /usr/binI prefer to put this in a local bin directory under my home directory. Open Terminal.app:
# mkdir ~/bin
# cp path/to/preverify ~/bin
Then you have to modify your PATH env variable in your profile using your favorite text editor. If you like vi:
# vi ~/.profilePut this line in the file and save:
Posted 06 Jan 2008 at 12:40 pm ¶export PATH=~/bin:$PATHI’ve been muddling about tryign to get this to work for myself for 3 or 4 hours now. It may have taken less time if I could have gotten over the fact that modifications to PATH/JAVA_HOME environment variables, etc. was a necessary step (I thought “surely I don’t need to get down to the environment variable level to make this work?!?”). Turns out, I did.
Here is the additional step I to make it work:
Added the RIM JDE bin directory and JDK bin directory to my PATH environment variable.
My question is, shouldn’t those things have been setup during installation, or shouldn’t there be a way for me to get the Eclipse build environment to know where the RIM JDE bin directory and JDK bin directories are? This way I could have different project types use different JDE bin directories.
Posted 16 Jan 2008 at 10:37 pm ¶Stu,
You’re right. It’s not very clear that the environment variable update is necessary, and I have not included that step in the instructions (neither on this site, or the BB Ant Tools project).
Today I will have a look and see if I can make the RIM JDE bin directory automatically discovered in the rapc ant task.
But I am afraid that the Java JDK bin directory will always need to be in the PATH variable.
Watch this site and the bb ant tools project for an update in the next few days.
Posted 17 Jan 2008 at 9:21 am ¶jiGGaK,
Thanks for the info. I *think* the problem I was hitting was that rapc could start off fine (i.e., bb-ant-tools was okay to get it going without the Rim JDE included in the PATH… jdkhome was sufficient), but when rapc goes to call preverify the path to preverify was not available. THis is just a guess.
I’ll stay tuned.
Stu
Posted 17 Jan 2008 at 1:44 pm ¶Stu,
I’ve updated bb-ant-tools to automatically add the JDE’s bin directory to the PATH temporarily. This fixes the most common problem people seem to report with the rapc task.
You can get the latest build from the project page on sourceforge.
I also updated the install section of the webpage to mention that the JDK’s bin directory must in the path.
Posted 17 Jan 2008 at 2:00 pm ¶Hi, Great tutorial!
I got this to work on Fedora 8, but after the build is over I noticed a problem: all resources are saved in the root of the jar, their paths are gone.
Posted 18 Jan 2008 at 2:15 pm ¶Is there a way to preserve the paths?
Yuri,
I’m afraid the rapc compiler will always ‘flatten’ the directory structure for your image resources inside the cod file.
I have no idea why it does that (maybe to make resolving of images more straight forward?) but I haven’t been able to figure out a way around that.
Posted 18 Jan 2008 at 2:52 pm ¶I found a way
You just need to copy the resources temporarily to the output folder, and delete them after the build is over. The key is that the resources must be in the working folder of the compiler.
Posted 18 Jan 2008 at 5:08 pm ¶Thanks for the tutorial and the ant tools. Work great.
I’m having problems with the code completion (ctrl+space) when inside a class tha extends another.
Sample:
public class TestScreen extends MainScreen {
public TestScreen() {
Te(*)
}
}
Ctrl.+space at (*)doesn’t show up anything,
while at:
public class TestScreen /*extends MainScreen*/ {
public TestScreen() {
Te(*)
}
}
it does show net.rim.device.api.ui.component.TextField and more…
Anything I’m missing? I tried to clean up the net_rim_api.jar leaving just *.class inside, but still the same.
Cheers,
Posted 26 Feb 2008 at 11:37 am ¶Xavi
This was very helpful, thanks.
One thing that is bugging me is that code-assist does not work 100%. In normal Java code I can type the first few letters of a class name that is on the classpath and have Eclipse add the import and complete the class name. However, this doesn’t seem to work with the JDE classes. I have to manually add an import and also fully type the classname. At that point, I can get method suggestions for that object. I’ve tried this on Eclipse 3.2.1 and MyEclipse 6.0.
Any ideas what I might be doing wrong?
Posted 29 Feb 2008 at 5:31 pm ¶Hey Thanks
but i m have 2 problem
1) problem as this webpage i have configare the Eclipes and also Bulid the HelloWorldApp but this bulid.xml is making Cod file but not starting stimalator, thus for that i have to manually go to the path of stuimator and start it and the open the file .cod form option.
please let me know what should be the problem
2) for debugging it is give me error as remote to vm not connenting
==============================================
Posted 14 Mar 2008 at 7:14 am ¶Sorry for bad English.[:)]
Navneet,
In order to debug you have to first be sure simulator.home property is set correctly and then run the load-simulator target in the ant script. This copies the compiled cod files to the simulator directory.
Then follow the instructions in the guide for starting JDWP and configuring eclipse to launch the simulator.
Posted 16 Mar 2008 at 11:00 am ¶Thanks for the tutorial, very useful, I can get a MIDlet working without problems. However, when I try and make a simple CLDC application, I always get an error about entry points, and I can’t see how to specify the entry point. It might be really obvious as I can see the entry point part in the bb-tools tasks source.
I basically have an app that wants to sit in the background so I can swap the icons when the user rolls over it. In place of a MIDlet class I have a UIApplication with the main(String[] args) method in. Compiles/RAPC’s without problem just when it is on the device is complains there is no valid entry point.
Here is the rapc part of my build script;
Any help much appreciated.
Posted 09 May 2008 at 7:52 am ¶Sjeps,
Here is an example of what project.properties should look like for a typical CLDC application.
type = cldc
title = Hello
vendor = Josh Kropf
version = 1.0.0
desc = Hello World Program
When you are building CLDC applications you don’t need to set the entry point. Simply extend UiApplication and enter the event dispatcher in the main method.
Don’t forget that if you are using a CLCD application you must use BlackBerry Ui framework. You can not mix MIDP and BlackBerry Ui components.
Posted 09 May 2008 at 8:24 am ¶Thanks for the quick reply, that is exactly what I have in my main() method, but it is still throwing an uncaught exception saying I must define an application entry point. That is why I was assuming it was some arguement I needed to pass to rapc that I wasn’t
public static void main(String[] args) {
Posted 09 May 2008 at 8:52 am ¶test = new TestApp();
test.enterEventDispatcher();
}
Ignore me, everything is working now thanks… I had some code which throws a RunTimeException if a method hadn’t been implemented later down in a class hierachy… it was throwing and causing the BlackBerry to display the message.
Posted 09 May 2008 at 9:10 am ¶Thanks for the tutorial, very useful. I can debug the BB application now but there is a small problem. When i inspect the variable from eclipse, I only get the ID not the valuable. (ex: Id=”10909021″)
Any ideas?
Posted 20 May 2008 at 11:10 am ¶I get the same problem consistently, but only when trying to inspect instances of java.lang.String.
There is a trick; add a temporary watch expression that calls the toString() method of the string reference.
Posted 20 May 2008 at 11:23 am ¶For Mac OS X users, you can get a copy of a OS X native preverify command from the SDK at http://www.mpowerplayer.com/
I just tried it and everything else from this document works with it in /usr/bin
Hope this helps someone out.
Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 9:00 am ¶I’ve got a build working on OSX using Maven. There’sa an article that tells you how to patch the SignatureTool.jar so that it runs on Linux. (RIM developers hardcoded Windows like backslashes in the path reference constants causing it to break on *Nix.) What I’m really after is the subtle difference between compiling using rapc.jar without Rim’s preverify.exe versus compiling with it. My cod file doubles in size when I point it at my source archive. Any hints or detailed documentation on secret rapc cmd line flags would be nice.
Posted 08 Jul 2008 at 4:15 pm ¶Cliff,
I’m a bit confused. Are you saying that you have setup a development environment on Mac and your resulting COD files are double the size!?! I have a Mac environment too and I don’t think my COD files are abnormally large.
As for the rapc compiler, just use bb-ant-tools. It will make your life easy. If you are the sadist type, and you want to figure out how the rapc compiler works I have some notes I jotted down during development of bb-ant-tools here but I hate to say the notes are a bit cryptic and possibly incomplete.
Posted 08 Jul 2008 at 7:44 pm ¶Hi ,
I am trying to automate blackberry signing process. I have provided the password as parmater but Iam not able to sign the file.Iam getting an error.
error is as follows:
sign:
[sigtool] All files must have the extension .cod for them to be accepted.
[sigtool] Usage: SignatureTool [-a][-c][-C][-s] [-f [-d] inputFile ][-r directory ][-help] ( codFile (codFile) … | csiFile )
[sigtool] -p
When I have removed password parameter it just prompts for password and when I type it signing is done.
can you please provide any hint that would help me…
Thanks,
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 1:21 pm ¶Chandar
Chandar,
The ability to pass the password as a command line parameter wasn’t added until version 4.3. Make sure the SignatureTool.jar you are using is from version 4.3 or greater of the JDE.
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 2:05 pm ¶Hi, I am trying to build my application using an ant script similar to the one in your example. Everything seems to build fine and all the files are created and copied over to the simulator directory. The problem is the app doesn’t show up in the simulator and I am not seeing any errors. I’ve also tried to load the app using the menu in the simulator, it attempts to load i think but nothing really happens, no error and no icon.
I am using the latest JDE 4.5 and building in windows.
Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 12:57 pm ¶Chris,
Is it possible that you are building your application as a library instead of a CLDC app or MIDlet? This would cause your app to not appear on the home screen.
Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 1:51 pm ¶Hi,
Please help me…
I was able to compile but my application is not working as I want because it can not find image files.
I followed the direction as above.
However it is not working.
where should i put the resources?
I made a reource directory as same level of source directory.
Posted 10 Aug 2008 at 4:32 pm ¶RAPC will create a JAR file. You can check this jar file to make sure that all the images where included successfully.
How are you reading in your images? You may need to provide an absolute path such as:
Posted 11 Aug 2008 at 10:58 am ¶Bitmap.getBitmapResource("/poo.png");
Hi all,
Thanks for the tutorial. I’m having a little problem with importing jar files when compiling.
Following the documentation I include the import element inside my RAPC call, along with a a location attribute to point to JAR xxxx. The cod files appear to be created correctly and yet when I try to run on a device/emulator it says “Module xxxx not found”. If I check inside the created JAR file, it also seems that the necessary imports are missing.
I’m sure there is a trivial solution, what am I doing wrong?
Posted 12 Aug 2008 at 2:53 am ¶Sounds like you have two seperate projects/code modules. You need to copy all cod files to the simulator, including the cod files that correspond to the jar files you listed in the imports list.
Posted 12 Aug 2008 at 8:09 am ¶Hi jiGGaK,
Thanks for the reply, although I’m still a little confused.
I understand what you are saying about copying all cod files to the simulator – rapc creates six xxxx.cod sibling files all of which I copy to the emulator. There are no yyyy.cod files corresponding to the yyyy.jar that I imported during the rapc process, however. So where should the cod files that correspond to my jar files appear?
Thanks in advance.
Posted 13 Aug 2008 at 2:43 am ¶As an additional to my above message, I notice in post 37 you describe the JAR file that rapc creates – it seems all of the classes from my imported library are missing from here also; I hope this provides some clues…
Posted 13 Aug 2008 at 2:46 am ¶What exactly are you trying to import? If you import a JAR file you must have a corresponding COD file to run on the device/simulator.
Posted 13 Aug 2008 at 2:38 pm ¶Thanks jiGGak.
When you say I MUST have a corresponding COD file to run on the device, does that mean a corresponding COD file is meant to be created during the rapc process, or that I am responsible for creating that corresponding COD file myself?
I’m trying to import the LWUIT JAR. So when I run on the device it complains that the LWUIT module is missing. How do I create the corresponding LWUIT COD file? B/c even though I include it in the import path, their is no such COD file to be found after the rapc process is complete.
Thanks, and apologies if it seems like I’m asking dumb questions here!
Posted 14 Aug 2008 at 3:39 am ¶You are responsible for creating the dependant COD file. You have two options:
Grab the source for LWUIT and use rapc to build a library COD file.
- OR -
Copy the LWUIT source directly into your applications project.
Posted 14 Aug 2008 at 7:57 am ¶Thanks jiGGaK,
It’s fixed now.
Posted 19 Aug 2008 at 2:20 am ¶Ok, another quick question:
Am I right in assuming that if I’m using an external library, with no source available, then I’m stuck?
Posted 29 Aug 2008 at 4:44 am ¶Not necessarily. You might be able to include the contents of the library with your application.
I haven’t tested this, but I think the rapc compiler will accept a jar file. Here is an example build.xml.
Thanks jiGGak, I’ll give that a go.
Posted 29 Aug 2008 at 7:01 am ¶Great tutorial, but I have one problem.
When I dboule click on the “build” task in the Ant View of Eclipse, the console shows some activity, and then clears and terminates the build (presumably because of errors). How can I get it to NOT clear? I find I can run the build with $ant, and see things fine there, and even in cases where it works fine, the console window in Eclipse is mysteriously cleared!
Patrick
Posted 06 Nov 2008 at 11:38 pm ¶Patrick,
Sorry, I have no idea why that would happen.
I did notice two little toggle buttons in the console window marked “Show console when standard output changes” and “Show console when standard error changes”. In my eclipse, both of these are enabled.
The only thing I can suggest is starting a fresh workspace, and setting up a new project. See if the console is still magically clearing itself.
Posted 07 Nov 2008 at 10:30 am ¶Do you have a trick to manage the resource bundles MyFile.rrh and MyFile.rrh which is accessible from a dynamically created interface (MyFileResource)?
Posted 19 Nov 2008 at 6:03 am ¶where is this windows > preference….? i can’t find it! =(
Posted 25 Feb 2009 at 3:21 am ¶Nimra,
That’s a typo, it should read Workspace->Preferences
Posted 25 Feb 2009 at 9:53 am ¶jiGGaK, Why is it that expanding then rebuilding the jar allows it to be added to the cod? I’ve tried many other ways to toy with it and yours is the only one that worked. I am relatively new to Ant and would appreciate any explaination.
Posted 30 Mar 2009 at 9:06 am ¶Hi Stephen,
I’m not sure I understand what your question is. Could you be more specific?
Posted 30 Mar 2009 at 10:01 am ¶Hello
First of all great tutorial.
I have a question about granting read and write permissions to a midlet.
in the apache ant while I use the wtkjad I add the MIDlet-Permissions attribute and values
how do I do it here?
Posted 05 Apr 2009 at 3:57 am ¶Thanks
Hello
I am really just starting out, and probably jumping into the deep end too quick, but…
How do I “find your rim api jar (JDE_HOME/lib/net_rim_api.jar)” ?
I downloaded the BlackBerry_JDE_4.5.0.exe, but cannot open it? Is there a way to recompile this file for Mac OS X, or extract any .jar contents?
The rest of the tutorial is crystal clear.
Best,
Posted 06 Apr 2009 at 12:33 pm ¶Aaron
Aaron,
You need a copy of the JDE directory in order to use bb-ant-tools. Specifically you will need at least net_rim_api_jar, rapc.jar, and SignatureTool.jar. On top of that in Mac OS X you will need a command line tool called preverify. You can find this in the mpp sdk.
BlackBerry_JDE_4.5.0.exe is an installation package. You will need a Windows system to install the JDE. Then you can simply copy the directory over to your Mac OS X machine to get the required files.
There is a way to extract the file on Mac OS X using wine (darwine on OS X) but it haven’t tried this before.
Posted 06 Apr 2009 at 1:44 pm ¶Hi, thank you so much for your article. I have just enjoyed by installing successfully JDE on Fedora Eclipse.
I just concern one thing that how can i set icon for one App.
I appreciate all your help
Thanks
Posted 23 May 2009 at 7:23 am ¶Thanks…i got it
Posted 23 May 2009 at 9:23 am ¶Hi, I have problems running the blackberry on MAC OS X using the above methods.
I followed the same procedure as mentioned above but still I am struggling to run the application on the Ant
the console shows me error:
src not found
I tried changing the src.dir and build.dir in the build.xml but didnot work
Can you please show me how to do this? I am complete newbie to blackberry development.
Posted 25 May 2009 at 5:44 am ¶Make sure the source directory (src) actually exists. Also make sure you are running ‘ant’ from the root of your project, eg:
Posted 25 May 2009 at 6:25 am ¶myproject# ./antI am running the ant the way you should. Window -> Ant Window
I didnt get the way to run the ant from root of my project.
Posted 29 May 2009 at 8:01 am ¶And yes my project has the src directory in it.
I was trying to get the
jde.home property set up correctly,
but I don’t know what mine should be.
I have tried: C:\Program Files\Research In Motion\BlackBerry JDE 4.7.0
which is the location of my file that is equivalent to yours but it won’t accept it.
Same thing with my simulator.home
I have attempted to give it
C:\Program Files\Research In Motion\BlackBerry JDE 4.7.0\simulator
but once again it doesn’t like it.
The line it doesn’t like is
specifically the build.dir
Posted 13 Oct 2009 at 8:35 pm ¶Running Snow Leopard? You can find a Universal preverify at http://developer.motorola.com/docstools/motodevstudio/javame/downloads/
Posted 18 Jan 2010 at 9:08 pm ¶Hi, I got the following error:
/Users/xxxxxxx/Development/BlackBerry/SDK/HelloWorld/src/ca/slashdev/build.xml:16: jde home must be a directory
When I complied the code using ant. Please help me .
Posted 25 Jan 2010 at 4:50 am ¶krishnan,
You must set the jde.home directory in the build script or properties file. The path should be the directory where you copied the RIM JDE.
We also have forums now for discussions such as this: http://forum.slashdev.ca/
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