Most of the work was done to improve device compatibility and fix bugs on specific handsets (e.g.: BlackBerry devices, Nokia E61, and many more).

Release details

New cool features are introduced:

• Touch-screen support: if you have a device supporting touch, now you can easily interact with Gcal with stylus/fingers!
  Touch gestures are also implemented: go from a day to another simply swiping!
• Event saving on local calendar: you can now save an event on your local calendar. If you’re creating a new event, just check the “Save on local calendar” option. Instead, if you’re viewing a saved event, choose “Actions” -> “Save locally” from the options menu.

New settings are also available:

• Font size: introduced to improve readability, and to allow users with touch-screen to have larger touchable areas
• Alternative soft-keys: devices without hardware soft-keys can now use ‘*’ and ‘#‘ keys to substitute them, and so use Gcal without any more problems
• Show only calendars with events: this will allow users with a lot of calendars to show only the ones actually selected in the “Filter calendars” screen, greatly improving events readability

Among the fixed bugs:

• Calendar loading errors on various handsets
• Filters scrolling and selection in calendar filtering screen
• Screen size/orientation changes are now better handled

Give your feedback

A lot of new features are still under development, and surely a lot are the missing features that you would like to see into your Gcal. Just leave your comment here, and your feedback will be surely considered for the next Gcal releases!

Holidays are gone, but gifts are not! So, here’s a big update to Gcal, the J2ME Google Calendar client: version 0.2 is available for download!

Thanks to your precious support and feedback a lot of improvements and bug fixes have been done: thank you all (and please don’t stop )!

New features of this version include:

• Check for updates and auto-update features: you can now manually check for updates, or switch on auto-updates (from Settings screen) to always get the latest Gcal releases!
• More control over events: delete, duplicate and copy an event from a calendar to another in a snap!
• Comments: It’s now possible to add and view comments for an event
• More event details: event visibility (private/public) and available/busy status now available when creating an event
• Map viewing: different types of maps have been added, so you can now switch among satellite/terrain and other views
• Sending an event, with his details, via SMS

Important bugs fixed in this release:

• Character encoding: terrible lack of first versions, character encoding should now correctly work
• Wrong time when creating/showing events, with some timezones
• Events order sometimes scrambled
• Wrong login error messages: now, different types of errors are correctly handled
• Calendars filter sometimes resetted without changing the account
• Different types of errors and Exceptions when receiving events (e.g.: on Nokia S40 devices)

Many other minor fixes have been done, so it’s highly recommended to upgrade your Gcal to 0.2 version. As always, for any kind of feedbacks or bug report, please leave a comment here

Meanwhile, here’s the first little upgrade to GCal, the J2ME Google Calendar client: if you use Google Apps with your mapped domain, now you can use your hosted accounts with GCal as well!

Download GCal v0.1.1 here.

Edit: this version also fixes a bug with some Nokia S60 3rd edition FP2 devices, who previously got stuck at splash screen.

Christmas is rapidly approaching, and it’s time for presents!

For those who have always wanted a Google Calendar client for their Java ME enabled cellphones, it is finally here!

J2ME Google Calendar

It’s still an early alpha, but everyone is welcome to try it and give feedbacks.

Features of this first release include:

• calendar filtering
• events creation
• event searching
• events location map viewing

And here are some screenshots:

Daily events

Calendars filter

Event creation

Event location map

Date selection

Event search

Settings screen

For all requests, feedbacks and bugs please leave a comment to this post

Release notes

Compatibility issues:

• Some Nokia Series60 1st and 2nd edition devices have problems in handling HTTP redirects: I’m working on a fix, that will be available in a future GCal release
• You must specify your account name without the ‘@gmail.com’ part, otherwise authentication will fail (an automatic check will be added in the next release): you can now specify ‘@gmail.com’ part in your account name, and authentication will fail no more. Also, if you’re using a mapped domain with Google, you can now use your hosted account data as well.

If you prefer a live demonstration rather than a simple screenshot, just go here: Canvas Calendar in action.

So, how to use it?

1. Download its source code (CalendarWidget.java) and put it straight in your project
2. Instantiate it within your Canvas with its plain-old-unique constructor:

   CalendarWidget calendar = new CalendarWidget(new Date());

3. Customize it with the colors/fonts/padding you prefer:

   calendar.headerFont = Font.getFont(Font.FACE_PROPORTIONAL, Font.STYLE_BOLD, Font.SIZE_LARGE);
   calendar.weekdayFont = Font.getFont(Font.FACE_PROPORTIONAL, Font.STYLE_BOLD, Font.SIZE_MEDIUM);
   calendar.weekdayBgColor = 0xccccff;
   calendar.weekdayColor = 0x0000ff;
   calendar.headerColor = 0xffffff;

4. After you’ve customized it, remember to always call its initialize() method:

   calendar.initialize();

5. Now, to paint it, you can simply call its paint() method from your Canvas paint(), like this:

   protected void paint(Graphics g)
   {
       g.setColor(0xffffff);
       g.fillRect(0, 0, getWidth(), getHeight());
       calendar.paint(g);
   }

6. Now you must allow users to interact with it, so you can, for example, use Canvas keyPressed() method to interact with calendar:

   protected void keyPressed(int key)
   {
       int keyCode = getGameAction(key);
       if(keyCode == FIRE)
       {
           Display.getDisplay(midlet).setCurrent(
               new Alert("Selected date", calendar.getSelectedDate().toString(), null, AlertType.CONFIRMATION)
           );
       }
       else
       {
           calendar.keyPressed(keyCode);
           repaint();
       }
   }

   As you see, what we do is this:

   • if the user press FIRE button, we alert the current selected date
   • otherwise we call calendar keyPressed() method, to make it behave accordingly
7. Other customizable properties include:
   • MONTH_LABELS: change this to customize month labels in your own language
   • WEEKDAY_LABELS: as above, change this to customize weekday labels
   • startWeekday: this represents the week starting day, and its values range goes from 0 (for Monday) to 6 (for Sunday)

You can download source code of the example described above here: CalendarCanvas.java.

To get some more details about CalendarWidget source code, you can take a look at my article on Forum Nokia Wiki: Building a J2ME Canvas based Calendar / Date picker.