Latest posts from Codename One.
Blog
Insights, release updates, tutorials, and engineering notes from the Codename One team.
Desktop Skin
During the final stages of the 3.7 release cycle we had a lot of material to go thru and Chen slipped a couple of features that we just didn’t have the time to discuss. One of those features is the new desktop skin which is a special case skin to debug desktop and JavaScript apps. Unlike other skins it doesn’t scale, it resizes the UI when you resize it. It has no skin decorations except for a small bar at the bottom that indicates the current resolution. You can use this to simulate resizing from the user. ...
TIP: Using Git for Codename One Projects
I wrote in the past about importing a Codename One demo from github but I left the whole working with git as an open subject. Mostly because I considered it a bit out of scope for the discussion. I have a section in the free online course about the anatomy of a Codename One application which I completely forgot to upload until I wrote this! If you want to understand more, I strongly suggest watching that as it explains a lot of the “why” and “how” logic of Codename One project structures. It explains the purpose of every file you see in the project… ...
Survey Results, Kotlin, Updates and News
It’s been a hectic month getting the academy up and orchestrating the release. I have a mixed bag of updates and announcements we need to make. Specifically covering the surveys for the next academy app, the Kotlin survey, the coming update to 3.7.2 and future milestones. Kotlin As you recall I published a Kotlin survey a while back and we didn’t publish the results. Some of the result were a bit surprising… Lets review some of the answers. ...
GUI Builder Improvements
With version 3.7, we have revamped the GUI builder with a designer that allows you to position your elements precisely where you want them. The experience should be closer to what you find in graphical design applications like Photoshop rather than the more rigid “drop in the slot” approach in previous versions of the GUI builder. There are caveats to be aware of with this approach, but overall, it should empower you to build beautiful UIs with greater ease than before. ...
Codename One 3.7 is Live
Codename One 3.7, the “Write Once Run Anywhere” mobile solution for Java developers is now live! This exciting new release brings with it a surprising new overhaul of the Codename One GUI builder which now includes support to “auto-layout” allowing developers to place components with the ease/power of Photoshop or Illustrator.. Codename One is the only platform that… Has Write Once Run Anywhere with no special hardware requirements and 100% code reuse ...
Launching the Codename One Academy
On the eve of the release of Codename One 3.7 we are excited to announce the new Codename One Academy which will change the way people learn Codename One. We’ve invested a lot of effort in creating a smooth learning experience and we’re launching with 3 live courses. This wouldn’t have been possible without all the help from community members who provided guidelines, feedback and assistance. It wouldn’t have been possible without the members of the bootcamp who helped with the process of refining the requirements from this course. Thank you all for your help! ...
How does it Work?
You know that feeling before going on stage to talk or perform. It’s a knot in your stomach but also an exhilarating sense of excitement about what’s to come… I’ve got that fidgety feeling of “can’t wait to get it out” and yet I feel there is so much more to do. Thanks for all the comments, questions, suggestions & votes for the last couple of posts. Those always help tremendously! One of our bootcamp participants mentioned the length of my videos in the bootcamp and my response at the time was that I can’t possibly make the videos shorter as it would be far more work… ...
Getting from Good to Great
Thanks for all the great feedback on my last post, I got some wonderful app suggestions from some of you and some interesting questions. Overall, there were more than 100 comments and emails so I apologize if I took too long to answer some of you. I already mentioned the focus of these coming courses is to let you create apps in a more practical form: “cook book” style. But while I talked a bit about the narrative and the course I didn’t explain exactly how or why this will work effectively. ...
Code Freeze for 3.7
3.7 is almost here… Later today we will enter the week long code freeze where only critical issues are fixed. We’ll publish the plugin release candidate for 3.7 soon and it will include some interesting new things that I haven’t discussed at all! I’m too busy with the new courses but I hope I’ll be able to go into details with the release announcement. The birthday of 3.7 will be on Tuesday June 27th… Up to then all new commits to git need to go thru code reviews and must match a P1 bug. ...
That's a Great Looking App
I talk to a lot of mobile developers or those who are starting out in the field and by far the number one problem is getting a refined sublime app. There are too many difficulties and pitfalls along the way and the end result is often “sub par” in terms of the UI you want to achieve. We too bare responsibility for that. We focus too much on the technology and too little on making “gorgeous” easy. I want you to join me in changing that narrative… ...
Tutorial: Networking and Webservices
Networking in Codename One includes so many different options and some very complex capabilities. This tutorial doesn’t cover all the options but it tries to clarify the logic of why we have both URL and ConnectionRequest. It also explains the socket API types and which one makes sense in which situation. We also provide a couple of simple examples of REST API calls and an overview of the different ways in which REST can be implemented. ...
Restaurant App Builder
In the bootcamp we didn’t build just one big app, we built two… Or infinity… The first app was a restaurant ordering system that allows you to pick dishes from a menu and add them to a shopping cart. The second app was an “app builder” that allows you to customize the first app and then generate a native app based on that for your specific restaurant. I kept that under wraps because I wanted to do a big “launch” and release the app to the wild based on that but I ended up being so busy after the bootcamp completed that this just didn’t materialize. So instead of doing a big launch I’m doing the softest possible launch for this app. This is how the restaurant app looks, I cover its creation in the upcoming courses too: ...