J2ME on Symbian with Native Interface

[esteinitz]

HI

I need to develop an application for Symbian that runs in the background (I think it's impossible on a cell phone not running Symbian).
I thought I could write it in my favourite langage (JAVA but I should use a native interface to register the app as a kind of service or to have it running in the background.

Do you think that could also work on a cell phone?
Is it possible to JNI a part of my program in order to realize it? (I've never done JNI though), or is there a better way to do it ?

Thanks in advance

[petrib]

There is no way to directly call native Symbian functions from a J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition program (a MIDP MIDlet). You could open a socket to call a native Symbian C++ app, which does the native Symbian API calling. In other words, there is no JNI support in J2ME.

On some phones using the older PersonalJava or the Java PersonalProfile, you can to some degree do more than using J2ME/MIDP. However, there are not many phones supporting those Java variants.

If you really want to take advantage of Symbian facilities/APIs, write your app in C++, instead.

[esteinitz]

Thank you for your answer.
My problem is that I need a portable application (running on both Windows mobile and Symbian) but with the following constraints:
- background running
- Telephony handling, for incoming and outgoing calls.

I think for the backgrounf running, you just have to switch application, it shouldn't be a problem. But can you confirm me that the applet would still be running if it doesn't have the hand? (especially for network connections)

Concerning the telephony, I've seen TAPI for MIDP but I don't think it is implemented yet on any device.

i will have to choose the target devices regarding those criteria, but any advice is welcome.
Thanks

[ViruDoshi]

I havent done a huge amount of MIDP development, so i might be wrong but to my knowledge Java MIDlets don't continue running in the background, they can be sent to the background say if you had an incoming call but the MIDlet will automatically be in a paused state.

ViruDoshi

[Bernd42]

It depends on the phone if a MIDlet continues to run in the background. On most devices they don't. As far as I know call handling is not available right now but while be once MIDP3 is specified and there are devices which support it.

If you want to these things with current devices, you have to use C++.

Bernd

[esteinitz]

Let's consider this example:
I start my midlet and I then push the Symbian button.
The Midlet is not closed, and phone menus are accessible.

Now I need the midlet to keep on listening on the socket (this is a client app which connects to a server) and to be able to answer without any interaction of the user.

I now it would be much easier to do in native dev, unfortunatly we target too many different devices to allow porting time.

That's why...

Concernign the call handling, I thought I would write a server in native, that handles phone telephony on the one hand, and on the other communicates with the midlet. But if the Midlet goes idle when it's not on top, well you see my problem...

Thanks for your help

[Bernd42]

Yes, I think I understand your problem, but I don't see a good solution for it. Telephony is not available for MIDP1/2 devices, so your only chance at the moment is to use Symbian, Windows Mobile and PalmOS devices with at least some part of the program as a native program.

With these alternatives I think the best solution is a pure native program. And even with that it will a problem with some Symbian devices because they don't have official telephony support for 3rd party applications. It would be necessary to use some unsupported APIs.

Bernd

[esteinitz]

Just to let you know,
I made a quick midlet, that has one thread increamenting a counter.
We can see the counter growing up and when you either close the phone (this is a Samsung D720 slide-up), or push Symbian key or red key, they you lose the display, but the thread i still running.
If you launch the app again, the counter displays at a higher level than when we left.

So the answer concerning application in background is: YES !

[Bernd42]

Thanks for the info. I only knew that is is working on some phones but is not on most, but never checked on which is is working. So it should be possible to do the trick with the background server.

Bernd