Book Image

BlackBerry Java Application Development

Book Image

BlackBerry Java Application Development

Overview of this book

BlackBerry Smartphone was once the domain of jet-setting business users with power suits. Now you can hardly go anywhere without seeing someone using a BlackBerry to check their messages or make a call. It's this kind of explosive growth that makes the BlackBerry ecosystem a great place to develop and market applications through the BlackBerry App World store—this book shows you how to do just that! This step-by-step guide gives you a hands-on experience of developing innovative Java applications for your BlackBerry. With the help of this book, you will learn to build your own applications to illustrate the platform, and the various capabilities that developers can use in their programs. It explores the powers of Blackberry and helps you develop professional and impressive Java applications. The book teaches how to write rich, interactive, and smart BlackBerry applications in Java. It expects the readers to know Java but not Java Mobile or the BlackBerry APIs. We will learn to build rich, interactive, and smart Java applications for the BlackBerry. The book will cover UI programming, data storage, programming network, and internet API apps. As we move on, we will learn more about the BlackBerry's device features, such as messaging, GPS, multimedia, contacts and calendar, and so on.This book also helps you build your own applications to illustrate the platform, and the various capabilities that developers can use in their programs.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
BlackBerry Java Application Development
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgement
About the Reviewers
Preface

ButtonField


Okay, so the ButtonField isn't very interesting by itself but working with a ButtonField is going to be a little more complicated and involved than it was with the text fields, and in that respect, they are more interesting. Now a ButtonField, is in many ways, the least used field in the system. If you look at the existing applications that come with the handheld, such as Mail and Address Book, they don't use a ButtonField at all.

In general, you shouldn't use button fields on a screen with other fields. Anything you might want to do with a button can, and should, be done through a menu item. This is the style that has been set forth by BlackBerry in the existing applications.

So why even have a ButtonField if you are recommended to not use it? One word, Dialogs.

Pop-up dialogs typically do use buttons to dismiss the dialog. In fact, for dialogs one should not use menu items at all. If something is so complicated that it cannot be done with a few buttons, it is too complicated for...