Tutorial: Creating MIDlet shortcuts in start menu, and changing the shortcut icon

[m3uch4]

Well, so you have installed Opera Mini, you love the app but hate having to open your MIDlet manager each time you want to run it. You can't have a direct shortcut icon in your start menu or your quicklaunch bar. Here is a tutorial to fix it (step 1 works with any MIDlet, step 2 works with any shortcut)

First i have to give due credit to Menneisyys and his awesome Java MIDlet Bible, and also to bobstar_fr for his shortcut icon mod tutorial


PREREQUISITES :
- Get yourself a decent MIDlet manager, the default windows one is crap. I would advise Esmertec Java Manager which can be found here.
- Download an Icon Editor for PC, for example the 30-day trial version of ArtIcons Pro will do the job.


STEP 1 : Creating a MIDlet shortcut
This step assumes you have installed Esmertec Jeodek or Esmertek Jbed (see prerequisites)
First, locate the list position of the Java MIDlet you want to shortcut in the Jeodek/Jbed application list. If you install Jeodek/Jbed as a fresh install, and then directly install Opera Mini, just use the number "0" to refer to Opera Mini.
Warning, if you uninstalled some midlets, the application list may not start at 0 or may have gaps. This number is in fact incremented starting at 0 each time you install a new MIDlet.

Then, go to \Windows\Start menu\Programs, and create a new shortcut. In the "target" field, type this :
"\windows\jbed.exe" -run s0_
Replacing the number 0 after the "s" letter by the list position of your MIDlet as found above.
If you have Jeodek installed, you will want to replace jbed.exe with jeodek.exe

Then click on your shortcut, et voila, the MIDLet runs immediately without having to launch the manager.

All credit goes to Menneisyys


STEP 2 : Modifying the shortcut icon
So you have a nice working shortcut, but it has the default java icon instead of the MIDlet icon. If you make many shortcuts they will all share the same (ugly) icon. You may want to change this.

The bad point is that you can't directly access the icon in a .jar file. You may only use icons included in .exe or .dll files. You could extract the .png icon from the .jar file and compile it into a .dll, but this is not the goal of this tutorial.

So if you want to change the icon of your newly-created Opera Mini shortcut, you will use another icon, for example the one from Opera 8.
Find the .exe (or .dll) which contains the icon you want to use, copy it on your PC, then open it with your Icon Editor. You will see a list with all icons included in the file, along with a number. Write down this number, it's the ID of your icon and you will need it.

For example, when you open OperaWM.exe in your icon editor, you see several icons, and the one we're interested into (with the red "O") has ID number 131.

Then go back to your Start Menu shortcut, and in the target field add the following at the end of the line :
?path_to_your_exe,-icon_ID
For the above example, this would be :
?\Windows\OperaWM.exe,-131

Et voila, you now have a nice icon for your shortcut.

All credit goes to bobstar_fr


To end this tutorial, here's a few ready-made examples :

Example 1:
Shortcut for Opera mini, installed in first position in your manager, with opera icon. In the target field of your shortcut, you would write :
"\windows\jbed.exe" -run s0_ ?\Windows\OperaWM.exe,-131

Example 2:
Shortcut for SFR Messenger, installed in second position in your manager, with MSN messenger icon. In the target field of your shortcut, you would write :
"\windows\jbed.exe" -run s1_ ?\Windows\WLMMessenger.exe,-50


Thats'it, hope you will enjoy.

[owziee]

Great tutorial!!! I'll give it a try later tonight. I have jbed installed on storage card though (the modded version of jbed)... I wonder if that may become a problem?

[m3uch4]

Originally Posted by owziee Great tutorial!!! I'll give it a try later tonight. I have jbed installed on storage card though (the modded version of jbed)... I wonder if that may become a problem?

Thanks !

No problem for having jbed installed on your storage card, just replace the "\Windows\jbed.exe" by "\Storage Card\jbed.exe" in all your shortcuts (insert subdirectory if needed).

[Menneisyys]

Great tutorial, I link to it from the Bible.

[@dom@]

Hi dude
What about link to MIDlet folders (shortcuts to folder and to any app installed inside it)?

Ciao

[m3uch4]

Originally Posted by Menneisyys Great tutorial, I link to it from the Bible.

Wow, i'm honored to get that kind of feedback from the java king of xda-devs.

Originally Posted by @dom@ Hi dude What about link to MIDlet folders (shortcuts to folder and to any app installed inside it)? Ciao

I need to test this to see if installing MIDlets in folders breaches the rule of incremental numbering by installation date. Will keep you updated.

[JZ SmartMort]

Announcing JZ SmartMort v1.4!

Now you can use JZ SmartMort to create Opera Mini and any other JBed application icon on your Start Menu!

Have a look at the screenshots of JZ SmartMort, available HERE or at SourceForge. Below are the prominent features that the software offers.

• Copy / Paste
• Clipboard / URL history
• Multi-browser (Opera Mini, Opera Mobile, NetFront, Skyfire, Internet Explorer)
• Make any installed browser system-level, where it opens links from anywhere. Ability to have a default browser (with a special timeout in case you want to open a link with a non-default browser).
• Hardware buttons - supports Pocket PCs & SmartPhones for advanced hardware button mapping.
• Opera Mini - shortcut on the Start Menu, different paste & URL handling methods to accommodate different phones.
• JBed - create Start Menu shortcuts for any JBed app, run JBed App directly using JZ SmartMort, troubleshoot your JBed installation.
• Ability to open synced Mobile Favorites with any browser, process killing and many other interesting features.
• Includes general tweaks and hacks which will keep growing

Revisions:
v1.4 *** 2008-07-07

- Created help files.

- Browser: Skyfire fully compatible now, new scan/detection with fail-over paths (if browsers references don't exist in the usual locations like the registry). If default browser timeout is set to zero, the JZ Browser prompt will be bypassed entirely.

- Opera Mini: full-screen, kill JBed option, multiple URL & pasting options.

- Lots of new options for button mapping. All known registry and link file button hacks now integrated to allow virtually any command to be called up. Also provides ability to create a CUSTOM link file from scratch.

- Changed menus to include menu-returns for easy navigation and better user friendliness. Added letters to Action menu as qwerty keyboard shortcuts.

- Phone-specific menu under JZ Settings which expands button mapping for BlackJack II (Samsung i617) CV/MediaNet buttons, as well as, AT&T Tilt (HTC Kaiser) PTT & Long-PTT buttons. More will be added.

- Creation of Start Menu shortcuts & opening of JBed applications w/o needing to open JBed first.

- 3 different methods under JZ Settings > JZ Misc. Options for opening Favorites. Save a Favorite from the JZ Browser script when you pop a link.

- Incorporated VitoCopyPaste with a timeout to return your directional pad action button back to normal.

- Various speed & optimization considerations incorporated.

- Function to deal with MortScript losing focus (e.g. when Home is pressed while Mort choice menu is running).

[Fixup]

I would like to add two things:

1) You can limit the memory for jBed and Jeodek:

59#"\Esmertec Java\jbed.exe" -run s2_ -DFile.maxStorageSize=4M

2) Shortcut for Tao Intent:

55#"\Program Files\TAO\jmm.exe" -r"Gmail","Google","Gmail"

[tobbbie]

I'd like to add a reference to a free icon/resource editor that allows you to create your own set of icons, e.g. for reference in the JBed .lnk files.

Tool Download: http://icofx.ro/downloads.html
Online Help for library creation: http://icofx.ro/tutorials/tutorial4.html