How to Install the Blackberry Simulator and Visual Studio Plug-In

It seems as if the smartphone revolution is upon us. Gone are the days where cell phones were simply used to make calls. Now, they can plan your life, allow you to stay in touch with loved ones, ensure that you’re always connected to all things work-related (which may or may not be a good thing), and give us directions to the nearest Thai restaurant, among other tasks. The leader of the smartphone pack can officially be declared the BlackBerry, which is well known for its addictive quality. Keep Reading...

Absolutely cracking article for anyone looking to get into all of this, like myself!

I'm interested in Blackberry app development and a BB emulator, but I don't have Visual Studio. Is it possible to develop on Linux? Perhaps with Eclipse or some other IDE or text editor?

Hey Arty,

You can indeed program for BlackBerry on a Linux box, though at the moment you have to do a bit of a work-around. I found this post from a user explaining the process:

"""
1) create a directory with the whole JDE (install it on a windows box and copy it across on linux)
2) Install the Sun WTK (you will need it to run preverify)
3) in your ant script import bb-ant (which you would have previously downloaded) and have the correct targets

Code:
<property name="jde.home" value="${user.home}/dev/bbjde" />
<property name="output.basename" value="MyApplication" />
<property name="src" value="../src" />

<taskdef resource="bb-ant-defs.xml" />
<target name="build">
<mkdir dir="${build.dir}" />
<rapc output="${output.basename}" srcdir="${src}" destdir="${build.dir}" quiet="false">
<jdp title="My Blackberry Client" vendor="MySelf" version="1.1.4" type="cldc" runonstartup="true" startuptier="7" icon="../resources/icon.png" />
</rapc>
</target>

<target name="sign" depends="build">
<sigtool codfile="${build.dir}/${output.basename}.cod" password="znetworks"/>
<delete file="LogFile.txt" />
</target>4) Make sure that the bb-ant is in your ant classpath
5) Make sure that, when you run eclipse, you have the bin directory of WTK and the JDE in your path
6) Just build from the ant task

Unfortunately I couldn't get the simulator running on Linux yet, so I just mount the build directory in a directory on a windows virtual box and run it from there """

I haven't implemented that myself, but other users say that it works. Hope that helps. If not, let me know and I will see if I can dig something else up. Thanks!

Thanks for sharing~~~!