The Eclipse Foundation has updated its integrated development environment (IDE) for mobile Java application developers. Eclipse Mobile Tools for Java (MTJ) 0.9 aims to help developers target specific devices, including Linux phones from Motorola, which next month will release Motodev Studio for Java 2.0 based on MTJ, the Foundation says.

MTJ was first announced in a 0.7 release in November 2006, with the goal of extending the Eclipse frameworks to support mobile Java developments. The new 0.9 version starts over with a new code base in a collaboration between the Eclipse MTJ project and the EclipseME open source project. According to the Eclipse Foundation, "a significant portion" of the new MTJ code is based on the source code from EclipseME, an Eclipse plugin designed for developing J2ME "MIDlets" for linking wireless toolkits to Eclipse. The Foundation, which says EclipseME has been downloaded over 600,000 times since 2003, is now encouraging the EclipseME user community to migrate to Eclipse MTJ.

Eclipse MTJ 0.9 is said to include the following features:Functional equivalence to EclipseME 1.7.9

Support for all Unified Emulator Interface (UEI) compliant software development kits (SDKs), including SDKs from Motorola, Nokia, and Sony Ericsson

Support for Java ME emulators, including MPowerplayer and MicroEmu

Preprocessor of Java ME code integrated on the build environment

Import of EclipseME and NetBeans projects

Improved support for MIDlet development and deployment via the Application descriptor editor

Multiple hosts support (Linux, WIN32, and Mac OS X)Due out next month, MotoDev Studio for Java 2.0 is a new version of Motorola's freely downloadable, Eclipse-based toolsuite aimed at helping third-party and community Linux developers create, test, and certify apps for new Motorola phone models. All of Motorola's Linux phones include Java runtimes.

The Java package is one of four MotoDev suites currently available from Motorola's developer website. The others target UIQ, Web widgets, and native Linux application development. The Linux suite was released in a 0.3 "public preview" version in August.

Stated Christian Kurzke, Eclipse MTJ project lead, and Motorola developer tools architect, "The new MTJ release is an important milestone towards establishing Eclipse as the standard platform for mobile development."

Availability

Eclipse Mobile Tools for Java (MTJ) 0.9 is available now, says the Eclipse Foundation. More information on Eclipse MTJ 0.9, including a download link, should be available here.


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