Basic questions about programing for J9 VM

Question

I need to create a java application to run on a Pocket PC 2003 OS and I'm limited to using IBM's Websphere J9 Virtual Machine. I'm new to using java in this capacity and therefore have lots of questions which I'm guessing are pretty basic. Despite my best efforts, I've found very little to help me online. Below are a couple questions I have that I'm hoping someone can help me with. Even better, if you know of any resources that could help me with these and other questions, I'd love to have them. Thanks in advance.
1. I'm using standard AWT for the GUI but I'm having problems getting frames, dialogs, etc., to come up in anything less then full screen. setSize() and resize() have no effect, even if I extend the frame and override the setMinimumSize, setPreferredSize, setMaximumSize methods. What do I need to do to get a child window to appear in something less than full screen?
2. I'd like to be able to add menu's to the buttom toolbar (with the keyboard) but have no idea how I would add something to it. Can someone point me in the right direction?
3. When my application gets an iconified event I go ahead and call a System.exit() to exit the application. This doesn't kill the java VM though, which continues to run in the background (taking up plenty of memory). If I run my application using the J9w.exe so that it runs without the console, then not only does the VM continue to run, but I have no way to stop it (the running program list can't see it). Since each time I run my application it starts a new VM, it only takes a couple of times before I'm out of memory and have to do a soft reset of the PDA to make things right. Can I kill the VM when I kill my application?
4. I learn best by looking at example code, but have been unable to find any code people are running on J9. I have the GolfScoreTracker installed and running on my PDA, but the jar file contains only the classes. Since it's supposed to be a demo, I had hoped that the source code would be included, is that hoping too much or is the source code available somewhere? In addition, if you know of any applications out there with available source code that are known to run well on a PocketPC J9 environment I'd appreciate the link.

Answer 1

Hi there, I saw your questions, im currently developing a java pocket pc application as well and here's what i go so far:
AWT seem to be hard to use on pocket pc, instead i recommend that you use SWT, which is a technology developed by eclipse. It's already installed on the eclipse plugins, you just need to download the jar and dll files for the pocket pc. They are available at: http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/index.php
I assume that you already have the J9 working on your device. So you only need to copy the SWT.jar file and the swt-win32-3064.dll to the folder containing the .class files on your device.
Now, on your java IDE(im using eclipse) Add the SWT.jar library to your project which should be on C:/eclipse/plugins/org.eclipse.swt.win32_3.0.2/ws/win32/swt.jar or something like taht depending on your eclipse root.
Now you are ready to code some SWT, here is a sample program from Carolyn MacLeod, i modified a few things so it could run on the pocket pc but it's almost the same. Once you coded in eclipse run it, then copy the class file from your desktop to your device(There should be like 4 or 5 classes like sample.class, sample$1.class etc. copy all of them) where you put the jar and dll files(If program does not run you may try to rename the dll file for swt-win32-3050.dll instead of 3064.dll). Now after you have everything set up you need to create the lnk file in order to run the program. On your desktop create a new textfile and write the following on it:
255#"\Archivos de Programa\J9\PPRO10\bin\j9w.exe" "-jcl:PPRO10" "-cp" "\My
Documents\Java\swt.jar" ;\My Documents\Java" sample
Paths depend on your install, and the place where you put your classes and jar file. path for j9w is usually "\Program Files\J9\PPRO10\bin\j9w.exe", and the last word should be the classname.
Currently this form only displays an image on a canvas, click on the browse button and choose a pic and it will display on the canvas. Im trying to connect the form to an oracle database but no success yet on the device.
Hope it helps, if you have any questions about the code or something, and I know the answer, please feel free to ask.
See ya
import org.eclipse.swt.*;
import org.eclipse.swt.widgets.*;
import org.eclipse.swt.layout.*;
import org.eclipse.swt.events.*;
import org.eclipse.swt.graphics.*;
public class sample {
static Shell shell;
static Display display;
static Text dogName;
static Text textdb;
static Combo dogBreed;
static Canvas dogPhoto;
static Image dogImage;
static List categories;
static Text ownerName;
static Text ownerPhone;
static String[] FILTER_EXTS = {"*.jpg"};
public static void main(String[] args) {
display = new Display();
shell = new Shell(display, SWT.RESIZE | SWT.CLOSE);
Menu menu = new Menu(shell, SWT.BAR);
shell.setText("Dog ShowS Entry");
shell.setMenuBar(menu);
GridLayout gridLayout = new GridLayout();
gridLayout.numColumns = 3;
shell.setLayout(gridLayout);
new Label(shell, SWT.NONE).setText("Dog's NameS:");
dogName = new Text(shell, SWT.SINGLE | SWT.BORDER);
GridData gridData = new GridData(GridData.HORIZONTAL_ALIGN_FILL);
gridData.horizontalSpan = 2;
gridData.widthHint = 60;
dogName.setLayoutData(gridData);
new Label(shell, SWT.NONE).setText("Breed:");
dogBreed = new Combo(shell, SWT.NONE);
dogBreed.setItems(new String [] {"Collie", "Pitbull", "Poodle", "Scottie"});
dogBreed.setLayoutData(new GridData(GridData.HORIZONTAL_ALIGN_FILL));
Label label = new Label(shell, SWT.NONE);
label.setText("Categories");
label.setLayoutData(new GridData(GridData.HORIZONTAL_ALIGN_FILL));
new Label(shell, SWT.NONE).setText("Photo:");
dogPhoto = new Canvas(shell, SWT.BORDER);
gridData = new GridData(GridData.FILL_BOTH);
gridData.widthHint = 60;
gridData.verticalSpan = 3;
dogPhoto.setLayoutData(gridData);
dogPhoto.addPaintListener(new PaintListener() {
public void paintControl(final PaintEvent event) {
if (dogImage != null) {
event.gc.drawImage(dogImage, 0, 0);
categories = new List(shell, SWT.MULTI | SWT.BORDER | SWT.V_SCROLL);
categories.setItems(new String [] {
"Best of Breed", "Prettiest Female", "Handsomest Male",
"Best Dressed", "Fluffiest Ears", "Most Colors",
"Best Performer", "Loudest Bark", "Best Behaved",
"Prettiest Eyes", "Most Hair", "Longest Tail",
"Cutest Trick"});
gridData = new GridData(GridData.HORIZONTAL_ALIGN_FILL | GridData.VERTICAL_ALIGN_FILL);
gridData.widthHint = 60;
gridData.verticalSpan = 4;
int listHeight = categories.getItemHeight() * 12;
Rectangle trim = categories.computeTrim(0, 0, 0, listHeight);
gridData.heightHint = trim.height;
categories.setLayoutData(gridData);
Button browse = new Button(shell, SWT.PUSH);
browse.setText("BrowsePic");
gridData = new GridData(GridData.HORIZONTAL_ALIGN_FILL);
gridData.widthHint = 60;
browse.setLayoutData(gridData);
browse.addSelectionListener(new SelectionAdapter() {
     public void widgetSelected(SelectionEvent event) {
          FileDialog dialog = new FileDialog(shell, SWT.OPEN);
          dialog.setFilterExtensions(new String[] {"*.*"});
          String fileName = dialog.open();
if (fileName != null) {
dogImage = new Image(display, fileName);
shell.redraw();
Button delete = new Button(shell, SWT.PUSH);
delete.setText("No action");
gridData = new GridData(GridData.HORIZONTAL_ALIGN_FILL | GridData.VERTICAL_ALIGN_BEGINNING);
gridData.widthHint = 60;
delete.setLayoutData(gridData);
delete.addSelectionListener(new SelectionAdapter() {
public void widgetSelected(SelectionEvent event) {
Button enter = new Button(shell, SWT.PUSH);
enter.setText("No action");
gridData = new GridData(GridData.HORIZONTAL_ALIGN_END);
gridData.horizontalSpan = 3;
enter.setLayoutData(gridData);
enter.addSelectionListener(new SelectionAdapter() {
public void widgetSelected(SelectionEvent event) {
     shell.open();
     while (!shell.isDisposed()) {
          if (!display.readAndDispatch())
               display.sleep();
     display.dispose();
if (dogImage != null) {
dogImage.dispose();
}