J2ME and Touch Screen Devices

[Danish Shaukat]

Hi all,

Afew years ago we had developed some midlets for “non-touch screen” devices. Will these midlets work fine on touch screen devices?

Regards,
Danish

[Darryl Burke]

Depends on the features of your MIDlets. The only way to know for sure is to test. One that won't work consistently is CustomItems that depend on the direction keys for navigation. All touch screen devices aren't the same either. Some have direction (arrow) keys and a Fire key, others don't.

[Danish Shaukat]

Thanks Darryl!

One more question: I don't think J2ME provides APIs for touch screen programming... I don't think there is any way of listening to touch screen events etc. Am I right?

Regards,
Danish

[Tim Holloway]

A lot of times, touch events are treated as mouse events, but it varies. A true touch API is obviously preferable if you want to take advantage of features unique to touch interfaces.

Check the Java JSR list. There may be a JSR for touchscreen input. In that case, you can shop for a device that implements it.