Visual Mobile Designer Custom Components: Creating Mobile Splash Screens

Requirements

Before you begin, you need to install the following software on your computer:

• NetBeans IDE 5.0 (download)
• NetBeans Mobility Pack 5.0 (download)
• Java Standard Development Kit (JDK) version 1.4.2 or 5.0 (download)

If you are new to the NetBeans Mobility Pack 5.0, you should start with NetBeans Mobility Pack 5.0 Quick Start Guide before continuing.

Take the following steps to install SplashScreen example application:

1. Download splashscreen.zip.
2. Unzip the file.
3. In the IDE, choose File > Open Project and browse to the folder that contains the unzipped file.
4. Open the Project and Inspector windows. It should look like the following:



5. In the Projects window, right-click the project node and choose Run Project (or press F6 key). As the application is run, an emulator window opens and displays the application running in the default device emulator.
6. In the Emulator window, click the button underneath "Launch."
   The emulator displays a splash screen, as shown:
   
   

Now that you have seen the SplashScreen component in action, let's go back to the beginning and create this application. To create the application, you will do the following:

Creating the SplashScreen Project

1. Choose File > New Project (Ctrl-Shift-N). Under Categories, select Mobile. Under Projects, select Mobile Application and click Next.
2. Enter SplashScreenExample in the Project Name field. Change the Project Location to a directory on your system. From now on, we will refer to this directory as $PROJECTHOME.
3. Uncheck the Create Hello MIDlet checkbox. Click Next.
4. Leave the J2ME Wireless Toolkit as the selected Target Platform. Click Next.
5. Click Finish.
   The project folder contains all of your sources and project metadata, such as the project Ant script. The application itself is displayed in the Flow Design window of the Visual Mobile Designer.

Adding Packages and a Visual MIDlet to the Project

1. Choose SplashScreenExample project in the Project Window, then choose File > New File (Ctrl-N) . Under Categories, select Java Classes. Under File Types, select Java Package. Click Next.
2. Enter splashscreenexample in the Package Name field. Click Finish.
3. Choose the splashscreenexample package in the Project window, then choose File > New File (Ctrl-N) . Under Categories, select MIDP. Under File Types, select Visual Midlet. Click Next.
4. Enter MySplashScreenMidlet into MIDlet Name and MIDP Class Name fields. Click Finish.

Adding Components to MySplashScreenMidlet

1. Switch your Visual MIDlet to the Flow Design window. Drag the following Screen components from the Component Palette and drop them in the Flow Designer:
• SplashScreen
• Form

The SplashScreen component looks like the following when it is added to the Flow Designer:



2. Select the splashScreen1 component. In the Properties of this component, change the Title to Splash Screen and enter Wait for 10 sec. or press a key to close it into the Text property.
3. Select the form1 component to and change its Title property to Form.
4. Double-click the form1 component in the Flow Designer Window to switch to the Screen Designer
5. Select the StringItem component from the Form Items section of the Palette, then drag and drop it into form1.
6. Double-click stringItem1 inside Screen Designer. Delete the title("stringItem1") and change <Enter Text> to Press Exit to close application.

Changing the Timeout Property of the SplashScreen Component

1. Choose Flow Design at the top of the Visual Mobile Designer window to re-open the Flow Design window.
2. Select the splashScreen1 component.
3. In the Properties Window find the Timeout property and change it from 5000 to 10000 milliseconds.

Adding Exit and Back Commands to the Form Component

1. Choose the Exit Command from the Commands section in the Palette, and drag it into the form1 component.

Adding an Image Resource

1. Download and copy the splash.png file to the $PROJECTHOME/src/splashscreenexample folder.
2. Right-click the Resources in the Inspector Window and choose Add > Image.
3. Choose Add option from popup menu and then Image.
4. Select image1 in the Inspector Window.
5. In the Properties Window, choose the Resource Path and then choose splash.png.

Binding an Image to a Component

1. Select the splashScreen1[SplashScreen] component.
2. In the Properties Window, use the drop-down menu to change the Image property to image1.
   Double-click the component to open the splash screen in the Screen Designer. It should look like the folowing screen.

Connecting Components

1. In the Flow design window, click on the Start Point and drag the arrow to the splashscreen1 component. In the same manner, connect the components as shown in the following graphic.

Running the Project

1. Press <F6> to Run the main project.

   Alternatively you could select Run > Run Main Project.

To Learn More about the SplashScreen Component

The NetBeans IDE provides API documentation--javadocs--for the SplashScreen component, as well as other components you can use in the VMD. To read the javadocs for the SplashScreen Component:

1. Choose View > Documentation Indices > NetBeans MIDP Components.
2. Click org.NetBeans.microedition.lcdui and then SplashScreen.

Next Steps

• Read our other Custom Component tutorials:
  • Creating Wait Screens
  • Creating Table Items
• See another example of a Splash Screen in action in this NetBeans Day Mobility Demo
• Read the NetBeans Mobility Pack Quick Start Guide to learn about other features of the NetBeans Mobility Pack