Facebook API ME & HTMLComponent: Not going well.

Hi, all

Yesterday, I took the day to work on my new project: Facebook API ME. The development is going well, btw. As I explained in the previous posts, the great challenge of this project is the authentication process, since it requires certain browser integration, which is not a trivial thing considering Java ME.

Anyway, the API is now working properly using Browser component from eSWT library. eSWT is available in most Nokia and Sony Ericsson devices. I intend to release it for developers this week. I will let you guys know.

Regarding LWUIT integration, using HTMLComponent, the work is not going so well. HTMLComponent is not working well with Facebook's authentication pages. Actually, it works well on login page, where the username/password are informed. On the other hand, the page where the user authorizes the app to access his account is not displayed properly. HTMLComponent is not able to display the "Accept" and "Deny" submit buttons. Because of that, the authentication process is not complete.

I tried to check out LWUIT's latest source code from SVN repository, but it seems they are refactoring the code for some reason. There is an error in one of the classes. Because of that, I was not able to generate a jar file. Is there anybody here that could help with that?

I also intend to work on Blackberry integration, using BrowserField component. But as I am not a Blackberry expert, I have to study a little bit to understand how it works so I can work with it.

I let you guys posted.

See you in the next post...

Facebook and Java ME: How to authenticate?

Hi all,

Last month, I have developed a tiny API that integrates a Java ME app into Facebook. The implementation was not a big deal, except the authentication process. Since Facebook uses OAuth 2.0, it requires that any app that wants to integrate into Facebook's services must authenticate via its web login page. We all know that displaying HTML page in Java ME is not a easy task, since we have no LCDUI component that renders HTML. Fortunately, LWUIT already provides that via HTMLComponent.

But how to accomplish that if my app is not based on LWUIT? Hard question, huh? In my case, fortunately, the app that I had to integrate into Facebook is based on eSWT, which provides a Browser component. Because that, I was able to access the Facebook's login page and track the whole process in order to retrieve the token access required to access the methods from Facebook API.

My point in this post is: how to integrate Java ME app into Facebook API without a browser component? What is the trick? Parser the web login page's content and simulate the form submission programmatically? How have you guys have done that?

In intend to release my Facebook API in a near future. So I would like to know a better approach to implement the authentication process, so this API do not get tied to any specific framework.

See you in the next post...

Soundtrckr: Internet Radio with Java ME

Hi all,

I would like to introduce an interesting app developed with Java ME and eSWT, which is part of the series where Nokia is inviting the coolest app developers to showcase and pilot their apps at Nokia Beta Labs. This app is called Soundtrckr.

Soundtrckr is the first Geosocial Internet radio. It has the largest fully licensed music catalog for Internet radio in the world, plus tons of social and location-based features to help you discover and share music that you can’t find anywhere else. See below some features available on Soundtrckr:

• Listen to more than 10 million fully licensed songs
• Create and share personal radio stations
• Play music with friends in real time
• Search your city for popular music and people with similar taste
• Share your favorite stations on social networks

Since it is still in lab, Soundtrckr team is inviting developers to test its beta version in order to receive some feedbacks and then improve the app as much as they can. So, if you are interested in being part of this testing process, click here and find out. On the other hand, if you are just interested in enjoying all features by Soundtrckr, you can download it directly from Ovi Store.

Soundtrckr is available for Nokia N8 and other Symbian S^3 devices as well as S60 5th edition devices. Regarding S60, the version on beta labs requires JRT 2.1 and the Ovi's one, 1.4.

For further information Soundtrckr, access the app's page at Nokia Beta Labs.

Before I forget, Soundtrckr works with Twitter API ME in order to implement the functionalities related to Twitter. Cool, huh?

See you in the next post...