(Hopefully) final MIDlet Bible main feature & hack & standards compliance chart published!

bub181, thanks. It seems version 1.5 of the Gmail MIDlet is really messed up - neither did it work under any TAO versions I've thrown it at. (And, for that matter, not even under Jeodek.) (BTW, I've accordingly updated the chart.)

This is bad news - as yours is a non-phone device (meaning no Jbed support), you'll need to stick to IBM J9.

Yup, they have royally messed up this version.

If you need to save your midlets / settings, look around in the home deployment directory of TAO to see what has remained there. I don't think everything is destroyed. Let me know if you need help with restoring stuff.

1. Gmail: That hurts. I'll publish a BIG warning in my next MIDlet manager-related article.

2. OM: How did you find Opera Mini 4 beta 2? Why do you prefer the 3-series to it? Cookie / connection problems?

bub181, I've uploaded it HERE

I saw somewhere you said jbed did not give full screen for Opera Mini.

I'm pretty much sure I haven't stated this. I might have referred to the, by default, inaccessible * key on Pocket PC's without a dialpad / keyboard and, consequently, inaccessible * key/button. However, as I've also pointed out in the chart, this can be easily fixed by assigning <Input Panel> to any hardware button to force the system to display it so that you can press Shift + *. and, of course, there are other ways of doing this with a third-party app (with keyboard macros), of which I'll post a biiiig roundup today.

Well, this is true with gmail, gmaps, etc., but it does give me FULL screen for Opera Mini 3.1.8259 on my Q. Love it, especially the tiny font! Among all the managers I've tried, tao, j6, jblend, jeodek..., this is the only one that does full screen.

Yup, Jbed really rocks. I only wish Esmertec released it as a purchasable (non-OEM) product so that we wouldn't need to rely on rips and hacks. I'd certainly pay even $50 for it if it was offered as a purchasable product. (BTW, the Esmertec folks haven't answered any of my related mails in the last 1.5 months. I've only received one mail from them early September, telling me they will answer them some time. Since then, not even he easiest questions have been answered, most important being "which of the Handango packages contain the latest Jbed version").

Readable estate is doubled! Even better, the dark color scheme matches my silver Q so damn good. A screen snapper is here:

Feel free to re-post your URL - just put it in without any HTML markup. I'll edit your post so that it will be an inline image. (The blog engine is pretty restricted in this regard; I also need to post-edit my posts to make links clickable.)

Thank you for your great work on midlet managers. I don't know why no other writers care about such a very important subject.

Well, diving into this subject also requires some (or, in cases, very strong) knowledge of Java and particularly MIDlet programming so that you can write your test / compliance suites yourselves (see for example the simple test programs I've linked in from the chart), which few general tech writers really possess. This may be one of the facts this area is so neglected, at least as far Windows Mobile is concerned.

Because Opera Mini is so far the only usable mobile browser (even the non-free Opera Mobile is not, so forget about all others) and gmail is the only fully-sync-able emailer, finding a good midlet manager for them make a lot sense. These two apps plus gmaps run very well on all dumb phones, and they are pretty much all most people need for mobile, it is a shame that WM smartphones do not support them well (no multiple apps, no full screen...).

There is a very simle reason for all this: Microsoft vs. Java (Sun). While other device manufacturers have jumped on the MIDlet bandwagon years ago and tried to come up with as good MIDlet managers as possible (think of, for example, the MIDlet manager on the Nokia N95: hardware 3D acceleration (making Java M3G games MUCH faster than non-3D-hardware-accelerated, native (!) games), multiple keypresses, BT & serial and file system connectivity, and everything you can think of), Windows Mobile is, unfortunately, an exception. Microsoft has never attempted to develop any kind of a JVM, let alone a KVM for Windows Mobile (because Sun is a competing company). And, as far as third-party MIDlet manager developers are concerned, it has always been an "also run" platform for MIDlet manager developers, who, instead, focussed on the non-WM smart and dumb phone platforms instead.

Hope my article when it's finally published, which should happen this week - I'm only waiting for my nbrand new Nokia N95 so that I can directly compare the WM JVM's to that of Symbian S60 v3 -, will also boost the demand for a decent MIDlet manager, which could also force the MIDlet manager developers to put more effort on this platform as well.

You should publish the article in your paper magazine as well. Most people simply don't know how great java apps are and how much more and better their smartphones can do with java. There are lots of native Palm and WM apps already, but most of them are no compare to java, especially for those three mentioned above. And, most java apps and games are freely available. All one needs is a good midlet manager. So your work is extremely valuable and those developers should listen to you.

I also hope they will realize how important Java MIDlets are for the Windows Mobile community as well, particularly now that the new Qualcomm chipset and the GoForce 5500, which is/will be built-in in many new Pocket PC's, have 3D hardware acceleration. And, with the advent of Opera Mini 4 and the Gmail MIDlets, of course, which are unrivalled - Opera Mini can indeed be called the best browser out there if you don't need copy / paste and/or e-mail link clicking support.

There are lots of work midlet developers should do. One of them is to support some of the new JSR protocols, such as the one that allows a phone to sync with google calendar, RememberTheMilk to-do list and Yahoo contacts. Again, games are important in terms of market, but more attention to business side is critical. There are lots of dedicated portable game players, so one does not have to play games on (expensive) PDA/smart phones. Good options of course. But, if PDA/smart phones cannot do business, we have no other choice. I don't know why most writers and developers have not realized such a simple fact.

Phone manufacturers have spent huge amount of money and resources to develop crappy browsers for their phones. Why not just pay some loyal fees to Opera and put Opera Mini as the built-in browser, is beyond me.

Unfortunately, the situation isn't this simple, mostly because, because of the lack of for example file system connectivity in most MIDlet managers (IBM J9 is able to access the file system with a hack; Jbed is also supposed to be able but it has failed both my tests and, therefore, I consider it to be improperly written / tested), which would it make possible to load local files. The (current) lack of parameter passing is an even bigger problem (clicking links in E-mails, Office or PDF documents). So is the lack of copy/paste support. (BTW, I'll talk to the Opera Mini folks on this matter as the modded Opera Mini, to my knowledge - I haven't tested this as yet -, supports arbitrary copy / paste, at least on touchscreen-enabled phones). I'll also elaborate on all these issues in the final version of the article.

1, Oh, you meant the full screen mode of Opera Mini, not that of the MIDlet manager itself. You can switch on the full screen mode of OM4 in beta 2 in the Options menu (at last), as opposed to earlier versions, if the * doesn't work on the SIP or can't be "injected" to Opera Mini via an external tool like MortScript. (Incidentally, I added two new rows discussing this scenario to the chart: see the new "Can you use an external tool (MortScript's SendKeys, VJKeyPress or PQzII) to "inject" keypresses into the emulator?" and "Selective (app-specific) button assignment for input with VITO ButtonMapper" rows.)

2. BTW, you could install another MIDlet manager on your device. You can, for example, run OM in Jbed and Gmail in Jeodek and just switch between the two from a task manager. I've tested this setup with a HTC Universal and worked (almost - sometimes, I got a white screen when switching back to OM4 running in Jbed but, then, after another task switch forth and back, the page was rendered correctly) flawlessly. In addition, Jbed / Jeodek runs apps (not games - games, generally, sense not being run in the foreground and, therefore, they pause not to consume CPU resources) even in the background, as opposed to Jblend.

3. I too hope MIDlet manager developers take the platform more seriously in the future. Right now, I don't know what they want because it's only the Aplix folks that did bother to answer my mails.

Just tested the concurrent execution of Opera Mini 4 b2 running under Jeodek 3D and Jbed on my HTC Vox smartphone. Worked flawlessly (and in the background under both KVM's); in addition, I've never encountered problems like the above-mentioned white screen with the Universal.

(Damn, my Nokia N95 should arrive at last so that I can, finally, publish the Bible... The DHL folks didn't bother refreshing the tracking data in their database; it still says "Loading 2007-10-13 General status. Sorting "...)