mtj/index.php - www.eclipse.org/proposals - Git at Google


            
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                <div id="maincontent">

            
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            <h1>Mobile Tools for Java</h1><br>

            
            .

            
            </p>


            <h2>Introduction</h2>

            
            <?php

            
            include_once($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . "/projects/fragments/proposal-page-header.php");

            
            generate_header("Mobile Tools for Java");

            
            ?>

            
            Mobile Tools for Java (MTJ) is a proposed open source project under the <b>

            
            <a target="_top" href="/dsdp/">Device Software Development

            
            Platform (DSDP)</a></b>.<p>This proposal is in the Project Proposal Phase (as defined

            
            in the

            
            <a href="/projects/dev_process/">

            
            Eclipse Development Process document</a>) and is written to declare its intent and

            
            scope. This proposal is written to solicit additional participation and input from

            
            the Eclipse community. You are invited to comment on and/or join the project. Please

            
            send all feedback to the <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/newsportal/thread.php?group=eclipse.dsdp.mtj">http://www.eclipse.org/newsportal/thread.php?group=eclipse.dsdp.mtj</a>

            
            newsgroup.</p>


            <h2>Background</h2>

            
            <p>The Java programming language is becoming more and more popular in mobile

            
            devices. Also, the richness of the device Java environment is getting better all the

            
            time and more applications can be written using Java, instead of native

            
            languages. As Java continues to grow in popularity, along with the proliferation

            
            of higher functioning mobile devices, it is apparent that Java applications can

            
            be developed to run on multiple targets, with a common set of application code.

            
            <br>

            
            Developing applications to the mobile Java environment presents unique

            
            challenges to developers. Specifically, unlike the straightforward J2SE and J2EE

            
            environments, there are a number of configurations and profiles (such as

            
            <a href="http://java.sun.com/products/midp/index.jsp">MIDP</a> on

            
            top of the <a href="http://java.sun.com/products/cldc/index.jsp">CLDC</a>

            
            and <a href="http://java.sun.com/products/foundation/index.jsp">Foundation</a> and

            
            <a href="http://java.sun.com/products/personalprofile/index.jsp">Personal Profiles</a> on top of the

            
            <a href="http://java.sun.com/products/cdc/">CDC</a>), along with a number of JSRs

            
            (and umbrella JSRs such as <a href="http://java.sun.com/products/jtwi/">JTWI</a> or

            
            <a href="http://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=248">JSR-248</a>) that require development tools to assist

            
            in managing the runtimes/class libraries for development work and runtime

            
            binding. This ability to develop for multiple targets and use common source code

            
            with different build configurations is critical in mobile Java development

            
            projects. In addition to this management of runtimes and the challenges it

            
            presents, mobile Java applications have unique launching and debug requirements

            
            and unlike J2SE or J2EE, applications are not always just placed on a server for

            
            download as needed. Rather, developers require device emulators for

            
            on-development-system test and debug, the ability to launch, test, debug and

            
            analyze performance of the applications on the devices themselves, where varying

            
            classes of these devices have different methods and levels of connectivity.

            
            There is also the need for a robust deployment solution to deliver the code

            
            under development to the device, and also be able to map that to a production

            
            deployment solution. Of course, this is all in addition to the normal set of

            
            application development tools (such as code creation, UI design and so on) for a

            
            specific market segment.<br>

            
            A common set of tooling and frameworks across these targets, and the mobile Java

            
            space makes the development effort and cost manageable for developers.&nbsp; This is

            
            why it is important to have robust Eclipse frameworks in place to support mobile

            
            Java application development alongside the rich client and server counterparts</p>


            <h2>Description</h2>

            
            <p>The goal of the Mobile Tools for Java project is to extend existing Eclipse

            
            frameworks to support mobile device Java application development.<br>

            
            MTJ will enable developers to develop, debug and deploy mobile Java applications

            
            to emulators and real devices.</p>

            
            <h3>Core features:</h3>

            
            <h4>Device &amp; Emulator framework</h4>

            
            <p>Normally runtimes are managed in Eclipse as a JRE. In the mobile segment, the

            
            runtime environment is a device emulator or real device. The MTJ project will

            
            provide features to manage mobile runtimes and provide frameworks for device

            
            vendors to add those runtimes to the development environment.</p>

            
            <h4>Deployment framework</h4>

            
            <p>One vital part in mobile development is testing on real devices. To make that

            
            as easy as possible the developer must have methods to transfer mobile

            
            applications to handheld devices using local methods (e.g. Bluetooth, USB,

            
            IrDA). The idea of MTJ is to develop a framework that provides an API for vendor

            
            specific plug-ins, which then do the actual deployment. </p>

            
            <h4>Generic and customizable build process for mobile application development</h4>

            
            <p>The goal is to enhance normal build process with mobile extensions like JAR

            
            and JAD file generation. With the varying configurations and profiles of mobile

            
            Java, this is a critical feature to enable developers to manage code production.

            
            Another requirement is to provide ways to add additional tasks to the build

            
            process e.g. signing. This work should extend the builder frameworks of Eclipse.</p>

            
            <h4>Debugging</h4>

            
            <p>This is related to Device &amp; Emulator framework. The goal of this item is to

            
            enhance the current Debugging environment so that it is possible to use mobile

            
            runtimes, either emulator or a real device. This task extends to launching the JVM

            
            and applications(s) on the local emulator or on the device itself, and allowing

            
            the developer to attach to that application under test. In the mobile space,

            
            this is tightly integrated with the Device and Emulator frameworks, and will

            
            need to provide a robust framework for device and platform makers to extend to

            
            their devices specific connectivity. This work should extend the debug

            
            frameworks of Eclipse.</p>

            
            <h4>Application creation wizard</h4>

            
            <p>Application wizards in general exist in the Eclipse platform. It is possible

            
            to generate Java projects with or without application skeleton code but the

            
            existing wizards are not usable for Mobile development. This task is tied to the

            
            differing configurations and profiles of mobile Java and relieves the developer

            
            of needing to worry about the boilerplate code for each of the application

            
            configuration/profile types. One of the goals of MTJ is to enhance the existing

            
            wizards by providing Mobile specific project wizard.</p>

            
            <h4>UI design tools</h4>

            
            <p>The goal of these tools is to improve efficiency (easy drag and drop without

            
            coding) and also decrease the entry barrier for newcomers. There are already

            
            visual designers in the Eclipse platform but they dont contain support for

            
            mobile devices. The target is to bring mobile UI styles, components and layout

            
            rules to Eclipse. The idea is to create a framework that enables the use of

            
            different kinds of UI implementations e.g. different resolutions, different

            
            vendor specific look and feel.. Also in the scope of this project, in addition

            
            to this framework is at a minimum. a generic UI designer implementation. <br>

            
            A Screen Flow designer tool would provide ways to develop application logic

            
            easily. It would provide easy drag and drop functionality to add different kind

            
            of screens and transitions between them. These transitions are caused by mobile

            
            specific ways like commands, list item selections.<br>

            
            The idea is to utilize Eclipse <a href="/vep/">Visual Editor

            
            Project </a>and extend it so that device screen

            
            engines from different vendors can be plugged in.</p>

            
            <h4>Localization</h4>

            
            <p>The mobile application market is world wide so applications typically need to

            
            be localized. Therefore, an important requirement is for tooling that makes this

            
            task easier.</p>

            
            <h4>Obfuscation and Code Size/Performance Optimization</h4>

            
            <p>Mobile devices are restricted by memory so it is important that code is

            
            compresses as small as possible. There are a number of ways this can be

            
            accomplished. Obfuscation is one possibility, along with tooling and frameworks

            
            to enable performance and size analysis on the emulators or physical devices,

            
            which can be driven back into the build process or just for the developer to

            
            streamline their own code.</p>

            
            <h4>Signing tool </h4>

            
            <p>Security becomes more important in mobile devices because they are open

            
            and accessible to 3rd party developers. One solution for this is to require that

            
            the applications be signed with an authorized signing certificate. The signing

            
            process is very similar to signing a normal JAR signing but there are some

            
            specific mobile needs. The goal of MTJ is to support tooling to sign mobile

            
            applications. This signing tool will provide extensibility to add solution

            
            specific signing tools. This is exemplary of other external tools for mobile

            
            Java that need to be able to be integrated to a customizable build process. </p>

            
            <h2>Status</h2>

            
            <p>This project is currently in proposal phase and Nokia is actively seeking

            
            interested parties for this project. Detailed planning for initial delivery of

            
            MTJ is underway and development is beginning.</p>

            
            <h2>Organization</h2>

            
            <a href="http://www.nokia.com/">Nokia</a>, as the submitter of this proposal, welcomes

            
            interested parties to post to the

            
            <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/newsportal/thread.php?group=eclipse.dsdp.mtj">eclipse.dsdp.mtj</a> newsgroup

            
            and ask to be added to the list as interested parties or to suggest changes to this

            
            document. The proposed project members include:

            
            <h3>Proposed project lead and initial committers</h3>

            
            <ul>

            
            	<li>

            
            	<p>Mika Hoikkala, Nokia (proposed project lead)</p>

            
            	</li>

            
            	<li>

            
            	<p>Arto Laurila, Nokia</p>

            
            	</li>

            
            	<li>

            
            	<p>Marius Voicu, Nokia</p>

            
            	</li>

            
            	<li>

            
            	<p>Minna Bloigu, Nokia</p>

            
            	</li>

            
            	<li>

            
            	<p>+ 2 TBD, Nokia<br />

            
            	</p>

            
            	</li>

            
            </ul>

            
            <h3>Interested parties</h3>

            
            <h4>The following companies will participate in this project.</h4>

            
            <ul>

            
            	<li>IBM, David Reich</li>

            
            </ul>

            
            <h4>The following companies have expressed interest in this project.</h4>

            
            <ul>

            
            	<li>

            
            	<p>Sybase</p>

            
            	</li>

            
            </ul>

            
            <h2>Tentative Plan</h2>

            
            <p>The goal for the MTJ project is to have a first release simultaneous with the

            
            next main release of the Platform. Due to the aggressive schedule, the premise

            
            for this first release is to have the core set of functionality to provide a

            
            project that is usable by a mobile Java developer to generate and test code.</p>

            
            <p>It is hoped and assumed that a fair amount of needed functionality will be

            
            contributed by Nokia and also by other project contributors. The first step for

            
            the project is to understand scope of initial contribution and then plan what

            
            new code needs to developed, what to utilize from contributions and how to

            
            refactor and integrated new and existing code to one initial package.</p>

            
            Regardless of the initial contribution, focus in the first phase is to develop

            
            mandatory pieces from a mobile development point of view. The most important

            
            features are Device &amp; Emulator framework, Deployment framework and Mobile

            
            enhanced build process. This work will be immediately followed by code

            
            development tooling such as wizards and UI builder. Then followed by other

            
            tooling like localization and obfuscation.<p>

            
            The working draft of the plan calls for interim milestone releases in December

            
            2005, March 2006 with a first release level delivery concurrent with the next

            
            major release of the Eclipse platform (at the time of this writing, this would

            
            be Eclipse 3.2). Due to the early stage of this project this is subject to

            
            change.</p>

            
            It is a challenging task to define the content and future directions of the

            
            Mobile Tools for Java project at this point. The high level intent is to provide

            
            mobile tool frameworks for any interesting enhancements in the mobile world.

            
            There will be a placeholder for any JSR or de facto standard that gets industry

            
            acceptance. Here are a few examples:

            
            <a href="http://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=232">JSR-232</a> (Mobile Operational Management),

            
            <a href="http://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=249">JSR-249</a> (Mobile Service Architecture for CDC),

            
            <a href="http://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=271">JSR-271</a> (MIDP 3.0) and so on.</p>


            </div>

            
            </div>

            
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	<div id="maincontent">
	<div id="midcolumn">

	<h1>Mobile Tools for Java</h1><br>
	.
	</p>

	<h2>Introduction</h2>
	<?php
	include_once($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . "/projects/fragments/proposal-page-header.php");
	generate_header("Mobile Tools for Java");
	?>
	Mobile Tools for Java (MTJ) is a proposed open source project under the <b>
	<a target="_top" href="/dsdp/">Device Software Development
	Platform (DSDP)</a></b>.<p>This proposal is in the Project Proposal Phase (as defined
	in the
	<a href="/projects/dev_process/">
	Eclipse Development Process document</a>) and is written to declare its intent and
	scope. This proposal is written to solicit additional participation and input from
	the Eclipse community. You are invited to comment on and/or join the project. Please
	send all feedback to the <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/newsportal/thread.php?group=eclipse.dsdp.mtj">http://www.eclipse.org/newsportal/thread.php?group=eclipse.dsdp.mtj</a>
	newsgroup.</p>

	<h2>Background</h2>
	<p>The Java programming language is becoming more and more popular in mobile
	devices. Also, the richness of the device Java environment is getting better all the
	time and more applications can be written using Java, instead of native
	languages. As Java continues to grow in popularity, along with the proliferation
	of higher functioning mobile devices, it is apparent that Java applications can
	be developed to run on multiple targets, with a common set of application code.
	<br>
	Developing applications to the mobile Java environment presents unique
	challenges to developers. Specifically, unlike the straightforward J2SE and J2EE
	environments, there are a number of configurations and profiles (such as
	<a href="http://java.sun.com/products/midp/index.jsp">MIDP</a> on
	top of the <a href="http://java.sun.com/products/cldc/index.jsp">CLDC</a>
	and <a href="http://java.sun.com/products/foundation/index.jsp">Foundation</a> and
	<a href="http://java.sun.com/products/personalprofile/index.jsp">Personal Profiles</a> on top of the
	<a href="http://java.sun.com/products/cdc/">CDC</a>), along with a number of JSRs
	(and umbrella JSRs such as <a href="http://java.sun.com/products/jtwi/">JTWI</a> or
	<a href="http://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=248">JSR-248</a>) that require development tools to assist
	in managing the runtimes/class libraries for development work and runtime
	binding. This ability to develop for multiple targets and use common source code
	with different build configurations is critical in mobile Java development
	projects. In addition to this management of runtimes and the challenges it
	presents, mobile Java applications have unique launching and debug requirements
	and unlike J2SE or J2EE, applications are not always just placed on a server for
	download as needed. Rather, developers require device emulators for
	on-development-system test and debug, the ability to launch, test, debug and
	analyze performance of the applications on the devices themselves, where varying
	classes of these devices have different methods and levels of connectivity.
	There is also the need for a robust deployment solution to deliver the code
	under development to the device, and also be able to map that to a production
	deployment solution. Of course, this is all in addition to the normal set of
	application development tools (such as code creation, UI design and so on) for a
	specific market segment.<br>
	A common set of tooling and frameworks across these targets, and the mobile Java
	space makes the development effort and cost manageable for developers.  This is
	why it is important to have robust Eclipse frameworks in place to support mobile
	Java application development alongside the rich client and server counterparts</p>

	<h2>Description</h2>
	<p>The goal of the Mobile Tools for Java project is to extend existing Eclipse
	frameworks to support mobile device Java application development.<br>
	MTJ will enable developers to develop, debug and deploy mobile Java applications
	to emulators and real devices.</p>
	<h3>Core features:</h3>
	<h4>Device & Emulator framework</h4>
	<p>Normally runtimes are managed in Eclipse as a JRE. In the mobile segment, the
	runtime environment is a device emulator or real device. The MTJ project will
	provide features to manage mobile runtimes and provide frameworks for device
	vendors to add those runtimes to the development environment.</p>
	<h4>Deployment framework</h4>
	<p>One vital part in mobile development is testing on real devices. To make that
	as easy as possible the developer must have methods to transfer mobile
	applications to handheld devices using local methods (e.g. Bluetooth, USB,
	IrDA). The idea of MTJ is to develop a framework that provides an API for vendor
	specific plug-ins, which then do the actual deployment. </p>
	<h4>Generic and customizable build process for mobile application development</h4>
	<p>The goal is to enhance normal build process with mobile extensions like JAR
	and JAD file generation. With the varying configurations and profiles of mobile
	Java, this is a critical feature to enable developers to manage code production.
	Another requirement is to provide ways to add additional tasks to the build
	process e.g. signing. This work should extend the builder frameworks of Eclipse.</p>
	<h4>Debugging</h4>
	<p>This is related to Device & Emulator framework. The goal of this item is to
	enhance the current Debugging environment so that it is possible to use mobile
	runtimes, either emulator or a real device. This task extends to launching the JVM
	and applications(s) on the local emulator or on the device itself, and allowing
	the developer to attach to that application under test. In the mobile space,
	this is tightly integrated with the Device and Emulator frameworks, and will
	need to provide a robust framework for device and platform makers to extend to
	their devices specific connectivity. This work should extend the debug
	frameworks of Eclipse.</p>
	<h4>Application creation wizard</h4>
	<p>Application wizards in general exist in the Eclipse platform. It is possible
	to generate Java projects with or without application skeleton code but the
	existing wizards are not usable for Mobile development. This task is tied to the
	differing configurations and profiles of mobile Java and relieves the developer
	of needing to worry about the boilerplate code for each of the application
	configuration/profile types. One of the goals of MTJ is to enhance the existing
	wizards by providing Mobile specific project wizard.</p>
	<h4>UI design tools</h4>
	<p>The goal of these tools is to improve efficiency (easy drag and drop without
	coding) and also decrease the entry barrier for newcomers. There are already
	visual designers in the Eclipse platform but they dont contain support for
	mobile devices. The target is to bring mobile UI styles, components and layout
	rules to Eclipse. The idea is to create a framework that enables the use of
	different kinds of UI implementations e.g. different resolutions, different
	vendor specific look and feel.. Also in the scope of this project, in addition
	to this framework is at a minimum. a generic UI designer implementation. <br>
	A Screen Flow designer tool would provide ways to develop application logic
	easily. It would provide easy drag and drop functionality to add different kind
	of screens and transitions between them. These transitions are caused by mobile
	specific ways like commands, list item selections.<br>
	The idea is to utilize Eclipse <a href="/vep/">Visual Editor
	Project </a>and extend it so that device screen
	engines from different vendors can be plugged in.</p>
	<h4>Localization</h4>
	<p>The mobile application market is world wide so applications typically need to
	be localized. Therefore, an important requirement is for tooling that makes this
	task easier.</p>
	<h4>Obfuscation and Code Size/Performance Optimization</h4>
	<p>Mobile devices are restricted by memory so it is important that code is
	compresses as small as possible. There are a number of ways this can be
	accomplished. Obfuscation is one possibility, along with tooling and frameworks
	to enable performance and size analysis on the emulators or physical devices,
	which can be driven back into the build process or just for the developer to
	streamline their own code.</p>
	<h4>Signing tool </h4>
	<p>Security becomes more important in mobile devices because they are open
	and accessible to 3rd party developers. One solution for this is to require that
	the applications be signed with an authorized signing certificate. The signing
	process is very similar to signing a normal JAR signing but there are some
	specific mobile needs. The goal of MTJ is to support tooling to sign mobile
	applications. This signing tool will provide extensibility to add solution
	specific signing tools. This is exemplary of other external tools for mobile
	Java that need to be able to be integrated to a customizable build process. </p>
	<h2>Status</h2>
	<p>This project is currently in proposal phase and Nokia is actively seeking
	interested parties for this project. Detailed planning for initial delivery of
	MTJ is underway and development is beginning.</p>
	<h2>Organization</h2>
	<a href="http://www.nokia.com/">Nokia</a>, as the submitter of this proposal, welcomes
	interested parties to post to the
	<a href="http://www.eclipse.org/newsportal/thread.php?group=eclipse.dsdp.mtj">eclipse.dsdp.mtj</a> newsgroup
	and ask to be added to the list as interested parties or to suggest changes to this
	document. The proposed project members include:
	<h3>Proposed project lead and initial committers</h3>
	<ul>
	<li>
	<p>Mika Hoikkala, Nokia (proposed project lead)</p>
	</li>
	<li>
	<p>Arto Laurila, Nokia</p>
	</li>
	<li>
	<p>Marius Voicu, Nokia</p>
	</li>
	<li>
	<p>Minna Bloigu, Nokia</p>
	</li>
	<li>
	<p>+ 2 TBD, Nokia<br />
	</p>
	</li>
	</ul>
	<h3>Interested parties</h3>
	<h4>The following companies will participate in this project.</h4>
	<ul>
	<li>IBM, David Reich</li>
	</ul>
	<h4>The following companies have expressed interest in this project.</h4>
	<ul>
	<li>
	<p>Sybase</p>
	</li>
	</ul>
	<h2>Tentative Plan</h2>
	<p>The goal for the MTJ project is to have a first release simultaneous with the
	next main release of the Platform. Due to the aggressive schedule, the premise
	for this first release is to have the core set of functionality to provide a
	project that is usable by a mobile Java developer to generate and test code.</p>
	<p>It is hoped and assumed that a fair amount of needed functionality will be
	contributed by Nokia and also by other project contributors. The first step for
	the project is to understand scope of initial contribution and then plan what
	new code needs to developed, what to utilize from contributions and how to
	refactor and integrated new and existing code to one initial package.</p>
	Regardless of the initial contribution, focus in the first phase is to develop
	mandatory pieces from a mobile development point of view. The most important
	features are Device & Emulator framework, Deployment framework and Mobile
	enhanced build process. This work will be immediately followed by code
	development tooling such as wizards and UI builder. Then followed by other
	tooling like localization and obfuscation.<p>
	The working draft of the plan calls for interim milestone releases in December
	2005, March 2006 with a first release level delivery concurrent with the next
	major release of the Eclipse platform (at the time of this writing, this would
	be Eclipse 3.2). Due to the early stage of this project this is subject to
	change.</p>
	It is a challenging task to define the content and future directions of the
	Mobile Tools for Java project at this point. The high level intent is to provide
	mobile tool frameworks for any interesting enhancements in the mobile world.
	There will be a placeholder for any JSR or de facto standard that gets industry
	acceptance. Here are a few examples:
	<a href="http://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=232">JSR-232</a> (Mobile Operational Management),
	<a href="http://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=249">JSR-249</a> (Mobile Service Architecture for CDC),
	<a href="http://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=271">JSR-271</a> (MIDP 3.0) and so on.</p>

	</div>
	</div>
	<?php
	# Paste your HTML content between the EOHTML markers!
	$html = ob_get_contents();
	ob_end_clean();

	# Generate the web page
	$App->generatePage($theme, $Menu, $Nav, $pageAuthor, $pageKeywords, $pageTitle, $html);
	?>