Blackberry Development Tips, Tricks & Gotchas

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+13 Q:

Blackberry Development Tips, Tricks & Gotchas

I'm looking to get into developing software for the Blackberry platform. I know they've got a great IDE plug-in for Eclipse and I've got their Storm simulator running on my laptop, it's fantastic.

So, that being said, anyone have any tips, tricks or gotchas to watch out for when using the Blackberry SDK?

Anything specific to various models? I'm starting development for the Storm 9530.

Specific points of interest to me are:

Accelerometer tips/tricks
UI tips/tricks/tools to use or not to use
Common mistakes/pitfalls one should avoid

EDIT: So far reading along the developers journal and also following the great blog posted already have proved to be quite helpful! Also found some helpful info on how to deploy your app to a device by reading the Developer Guide.

+4 A:

Professional Blackberry is pretty much a must read. Any tips I would give are pretty much contained there.

Click here and all your wildest dreams will come true

Aside from those two resources, I don't have anything really specific to add.

Paperino 2009-03-12 19:13:40

+1 - Thanks for the link to the book. I've been on the BlackBerry.com site quite a bit and I'm working through those labs as well. I'm pretty surprised I don't see more development questions on SO for this platform! Especially now that the Storm is out...

Mat Nadrofsky 2009-03-13 13:32:57

No problem. I actually had the same problem when I was writing a small internal app for our company. The book and developer resources got me through the basics. Since I've noticed that a few apps are incompatible with my Storm, I wonder if the development process has changed.

Paperino 2009-03-13 14:09:40

+8 A:

Not sure about self-promoting, but I've got a blog dedicated to that, especially for new BB devs:

Thinking BlackBerry

Also (to keep it balanced) the BlackBerryForums developer forum has a lot of activity (not as good as the official RIM forum generally, but useful as an alternate source.

But definitely blackberry.com is the first place to go (as pointed out by @Paperino)

Anthony Rizk 2009-03-13 12:54:22

+1 - Hey thanks for the link. I'm not new to mobile development but I'm definitely new to BlackBerry. I think the Storm has a lot of potential to compete with iPhone when the AppWorld gets up and running!

Mat Nadrofsky 2009-03-13 13:31:27

Well, I'm not a big fan of the Storm, but I do think RIM's got some very nice devices out there now with the Bold and Curve 8900.

Anthony Rizk 2009-03-13 17:06:54

My Storm is getting better with each Update RIM does... but it's still got a long way to go to compete with iPhone and the HTC stuff running Android that I've seen.

Mat Nadrofsky 2009-08-20 12:06:18

+2 A:

I've run into issues with simulator configuration, code signing, and setting up a download link for OTA installation of an application. Instead of typing everything over again, just go to my blog: http://zechariahs.org/blog/category/blackberry/. (Sorry for the semi-pimpage of my own blog.)

zechariahs 2009-03-16 00:29:01

+2 A:

Most importantly: http://www.blackberry.com/developers/docs/4.3.0api/index.html the API reference!

And in no particular order I also frequently use the following:

http://www.jonathanhfisher.co.uk/b2/?cat=2&paged=3#main

http://www.blackberryforums.com/developer-forum/

http://www.discussweb.com/blackberry/

http://supportforums.blackberry.com/rim/board?board.id=java_dev

Fermin 2009-04-29 12:47:55

Hey thanks for the links. Anything like this helps a bunch. I always like hooking into a few good blogs on it. Gives a personal perspective.

Mat Nadrofsky 2009-04-29 21:39:16

+16 A: