EclipseME Information

MTJ: The Future of EclipseME

Craig Setera — Sun, 11 May 2008 13:34:01 +0000

It finally happened. After 7 years of working on EclipseME, my little hobby project is finally growing up and becoming the official implementation of the Eclipse Mobile Tools for the Java Platform (MTJ) project. This is really a big win for everyone involved with EclipseME. For users, it means more support from the larger MTJ project team. For myself, it means… more support from the larger MTJ project team. For device manufacturer and carriers, it means that there is an official Eclipse Foundation project to interact with. This brings with it all of the benefits of a well-organized foundation that really understands the needs of corporations when working with open source software. With the involvement from Motorola, Nokia, Research In Motion and other device manufacturers, MTJ should be able to move forward much more quickly than it could move with the small EclipseME development team.

For regular users of EclipseME, it should be obvious that my time for the project has become more limited. With the transition to MTJ coming, I’ve spent my small amount of hobby project time trying to get MTJ off the ground in the best shape possible. Now that the MTJ project is up and running based on EclipseME code, it makes more sense for me to spend my time on MTJ. Barring any show-stopper bugs on EclipseME, I believe this is the best course of action for all EclipseME and MTJ users.

Where Are We Now?

Thanks to some hard work from the team at Motorola, MTJ now has nightly builds available. These builds are functionally equivalent to EclipseME version 1.7.8 with the exception of the preprocessing support and the built-in preverifier. We are continuing to work on those pieces at this point, working through Eclipse legal and in some cases re-implementing functionality to meet legal requirements.

What’s Next?

There is still work to be done for the first release of MTJ. Providing the full EclipseME 1.7.8 feature set is still the goal for the first release. I have made a few changes to EclipseME since the 1.7.8 release that need to be ported over as well. Once that first feature-complete version is released, the hard work of turning the EclipseME code into a “platform” starts.

With a feature-complete version of MTJ in place, we will also need to build user-friendly migration tools. These tools will allow current EclipseME users to migrate their projects and settings over to MTJ, making the transition as painless as possible.

Get Involved

Now is a great time for people to get involved with the MTJ project. The easiest thing to do is download the latest build and test it out. Tell us what works and what doesn’t work. Tell us what you like and what you don’t like. If you find a bug, log it in bugzilla. Join the mailing list and help us decide the future of MTJ. Of course, we love patches. Patches to fix bugs and patches to add functionality.

Thank You!

I want to take this chance to thank Motorola for taking on the MTJ lead position and convincing me that EclipseME was the best way to restart the MTJ project. They have done an incredible job in handling the “paperwork” necessary to get the EclipseME code through the process. In addition, they have done all of the ugly “grunt work” of making the transition… renaming, refactoring, etc. I also want to thank Nokia for their initial work in establishing the MTJ project.

Over the years, there have been lots of contributions to the EclipseME project. Kevin Hunter did an excellent job building the EclipseME documentation and then followed it up with the implementation of signing. Last, but certainly not least, all of the users have provided their feedback over the years which was invaluable in helping build a useful set of tools.

Version 1.7.9 Released

Craig Setera — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 20:42:11 +0000

Version 1.7.9 of EclipseME has been released. This version provides a single bug fix for a build issue causing users trouble in recent EclipseME versions. This version still supports Eclipse 3.2. Future versions will likely require newer versions of Eclipse in order to function.

The Eclipse Mobile Tools for Java project is in the process of restarting. Motorola has taken leadership and the current plan for the project is to restart using EclipseME as the initial code, building on what is currently available in EclipseME. Assuming that the project is successfully restarted with the EclipseME code, the EclipseME project will eventually fade away. We will work hard to make the transition from EclipseME to MTJ as painless as possible. Watch this space for further information over the next couple of months.

In order to use the preprocessing support, it is absolutely necessary that the new installation instructions be followed in order to enable the preprocessing support.

EclipseME requires at least version 3.2 of the Eclipse platform.

Refer to the installation instructions at http://eclipseme.org/docs/installation.html. EclipseME may be installed and updated via the EclipseME Update site as well as via an Eclipse site archive file downloadable from Sourceforge. Point Eclipse at http://eclipseme.org/updates/ to install via the update site. If you encounter issues with EclipseME, please visit http://eclipseme.org/docs/support.html for more information on support options.

This new version includes the following changes:

Enhancements

None

Bug Fixes

Fix for file locks deletion errors during build (Bug 1925613)

Version 1.7.8 Released

Craig Setera — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 18:25:17 +0000

Version 1.7.8 of EclipseME has been released. This version is primarily a bug fix release. This will be the last EclipseME release supporting version 3.2 of Eclipse. Upcoming releases will require at least Eclipse 3.3.

The Eclipse Mobile Tools for Java project is in the process of restarting. Motorola has taken leadership and the current plan for the project is to restart using EclipseME as the initial code, building on what is currently available in EclipseME. Assuming that the project is successfully restarted with the EclipseME code, the EclipseME project will eventually fade away. Watch this space for further information over the next couple of months.

In order to use the preprocessing support, it is absolutely necessary that the new installation instructions be followed in order to enable the preprocessing support.

EclipseME requires at least version 3.2 of the Eclipse platform.

This new version includes the following changes:

Enhancements

Add new empty API jar files for use in preverification and classpaths
Add new API extension point pointing to skeleton API jar files

Bug Fixes

Potential fix for deletion errors during build (Bug 1864870)
Fix for project selection on Midlet launch configuration dialog (Bug 1849395)
Handle resources without file extensions in builder resource deltas (Bug 1863415)
Switch microemulator to using new empty API jar files rather than Java SE API (Bug 1754829)

Version 1.7.7 Released

Craig Setera — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 01:29:09 +0000

Version 1.7.7 of EclipseME has been released. This version provides a small set of bug fixes against version 1.7.6. In addition, this release now copies the launchable resources (JAD and JAR) files to temporary storage before launching, allowing builds and other launches to complete successfully. This will be the last EclipseME release supporting version 3.2 of Eclipse. Upcoming releases will require at least Eclipse 3.3.

In order to use the preprocessing support, it is absolutely necessary that the new installation instructions be followed in order to enable the preprocessing support.

EclipseME requires at least version 3.2 of the Eclipse platform.

This new version includes the following changes:

Enhancements

Copy files for launch to temp directory to avoid locks and allow multiple emulator instances (RFE 1170991 & 1776408)
Upgrade the Antenna preprocessor from Omry Yadan
Refer to http://antenna.sourceforge.net/wtkpreprocess.php for preprocessor documentation.

Bug Fixes

Apply findbugs patch thanks to Luke (luctrudeau on Sourceforge) (Bug 1771116)
Improve the handling of UEI debugger in server mode - Patch thanks to Antti (ak_n on Sourceforge) (Bug 1778417)
Guard against unresolved classpath container entries (Bug 1809479)

Version 1.7.6 Released

Craig Setera — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 19:22:40 +0000

Version 1.7.6 of EclipseME has been released. This version provides a single bug fix against version 1.7.5. For more information on recent changes to EclipseME see Version 1.7.3 Released and Version 1.7.5 Released.

In order to use the preprocessing support, it is absolutely necessary that the new installation instructions be followed in order to enable the preprocessing support.

EclipseME requires at least version 3.2 of the Eclipse platform.

This new version includes the following changes:

Bug Fixes

Guard against NPE when JAD file cannot be found (Bug 1778279)

Version 1.7.5 Released

Craig Setera — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 19:51:36 +0000

Version 1.7.5 of EclipseME has been released. This version provides a small set of bug fixes against version 1.7.3. In addition, the preprocessing engine has been replaced with the new Antenna preprocessor implementation from Omry Yadan. This preprocessor provides significant new processing functionality. For more information on using this new functionality, please visit http://antenna.sourceforge.net/wtkpreprocess.php.

In order to use the preprocessing support, it is absolutely necessary that the new installation instructions be followed in order to enable the preprocessing support.

EclipseME requires at least version 3.2 of the Eclipse platform.

This new version includes the following changes:

Enhancements

Use of the new Antenna preprocessor from Omry Yadan (RFE 1767692, 1649304. Bug 1754655)
Refer to http://antenna.sourceforge.net/wtkpreprocess.php for preprocessor documentation.

Bug Fixes

Guard against some NullPointerExceptions when building (Bug 1756699)
Lower the sleep time when waiting for the preverifier to complete (Bug 1773744)
Maintain the midlet entry ordering (Bug 1776657)

Version 1.7.3 Released

Craig Setera — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 13:04:54 +0000

Version 1.7.3 of EclipseME has been released. This version replaces the previously removed 1.7.0 version. The new release is the first to provide the new incremental deployed JAR builder functionality. With this release, all incremental building results in a valid JAR file that should be mostly deployable. In addition, support for MicroEmulator, ME4SE and Motorola has been added.

In order to use the preprocessing support, it is absolutely necessary that the new installation instructions be followed in order to enable the preprocessing support.

EclipseME requires version 3.2 of the Eclipse platform. Eclipse 3.2.2 is suggested. Eclipse 3.3 should work, but is not heavily tested at this time.

This new version includes the following changes:

Enhancements

Don’t sign the JAD during incremental builds (RFE 1748246)
Always build to and run from deployed JAD/JAR combination (RFE 1711348 & Bug 1576563)
Add support for microemu (RFE 1632324)
Add support for me4se (RFE 1632329)
Allow the JAR file name to be specified via the JAD file (RFE 1556424 & 1668338)
Add MIDP 2.1 as a known profile

Bug Fixes

Fix for /res folder not being included when packaging (Bug 1745673)
Fix for version always incrementing during builds despite preference settings (Bug 1748893)
Fix for explicit builds not copying over the Midlet definitions (Bug 1742956)
Fix for build.xml file missing (again) for Antenna export (Bug 1667689)
Fix Motorola SDK 6.4 functionality (Bug 1717077)
NOTE: Many of the Motorola emulators do not appear to function correctly under Windows Vista
Fix for explicit builds not copying over the Midlet definitions (Bug 1742956)

Version 1.7.0 Removed

Craig Setera — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 23:07:03 +0000

Version 1.7.0 had a number of builder problems that have caused people quite a bit of trouble. Because of those problems, it has been determined that it would be better to remove that version until a fixed version can be made available. Version 1.7.0 has been removed from Sourceforge and the update site has been reverted to version 1.6.8. If you are currently using version 1.7.0 without problems, you are free to continue using the release until the next release is available. If you are having problems and would like to revert, please follow the instructions to remove the 1.7.0 release and follow the standard installation instructions to install version 1.6.8.

I apologize for the problems with the 1.7.0 release and hope to get a fixed release out soon.

Version 1.6.8 Released

Craig Setera — Sun, 13 May 2007 23:43:32 +0000

Version 1.6.8 of EclipseME has been released. This version provides a small set of bug fixes against version 1.6.7. With these fixes, Linux users should be able to use UEI emulators once again. It is absolutely necessary that the new installation instructions be followed in order to enable the preprocessing support as currently provided.

EclipseME requires version 3.2 of the Eclipse platform. Eclipse 3.2.2 is suggested, but 3.1 is no longer supported. Eclipse 3.3 should work, but is not heavily tested at this time.
Refer to the installation instructions at http://eclipseme.org/docs/installation.html. EclipseME may be installed and updated via the EclipseME Update site as well as via an Eclipse site archive file downloadable from Sourceforge. Point Eclipse at http://eclipseme.org/updates/ to install via the update site. If you encounter issues with EclipseME, please visit http://eclipseme.org/docs/support.html for more information on support options.

This new version includes the following changes:

Bug Fixes

Fix device handling on Linux (Bug 1707483)
Fix for preprocessor comment handling when comments are at files end (Bug 1708672)

Version 1.6.7 Released

Craig Setera — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 22:11:44 +0000

Version 1.6.7 of EclipseME has been released. This version provides a small set of bug fixes against version 1.6.6. It is absolutely necessary that the new installation instructions be followed in order to enable the preprocessing support as currently provided.

This new version includes the following changes:

Bug Fixes

Fix for Java Application Descriptor (JAD) Editor on Eclipse 3.3 (Bug 1683413)
Fix for Sun’s Wireless Toolkit (WTK) 2.5 installation in path with spaces (RFE 1689078)
Fix for temporary file name with user with spaces (Bug 1688739)
Fix for missing Antenna build exporter template file (Bug 1667689)
Fix for missing table sort images (Bug 1682182)