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Jack's Hack for the month of October, 2004:
Overview of Openwave Phone Simulator v7 Preview So the proverbial cat is out of the bag, and the Phone Simulator v7 is now out on the developer site in Preview form. This month we'll take a look at what the changes are, what's still under development, how to get the most out of the Phone Simulator v7 Preview release, and if you should spend your time working with it. First of all, just what do we mean by "Preview" release? Well, here's the scoop. While the browser that's found within the Phone Simulator is in a complete state, the tools and framework around it that make up the the whole Phone Simulator package are not in a feature complete state. Since the browser is done, but the wrapping is not quite feature complete, we're more or less a "beta" version. However, since there are still some features that are under devleopment, it's not really a beta. What does this mean to you? Well, the Phone Simulator v7 Preview is considered a stable release, and has a currently shipping GA Version of the Openwave Mobile Browser, so if you're developing MMS or XHTML/CSS content targeting devices with the Openwave Mobile Browser 6.2.3 or higher (such as the Motorola V710, the LG 7000, or the Siemens CX65/M65/S65 devices), this is the version you should be using to test your content on. You might want to check out the Phones List for an up to date list of devices with the relevant browser versions. What are the changes? The biggest change you probably noticed is the way the Phone Simulator starts up. Instead of beginning in an active browser session, upon selecting the Simulator Preivew from the Start Menu, you begin in the "idle" state of the device. This change was made to accomodate the fact that there are really several pieces to the Phone Simulator. The most obvious one (and the one you're most likely familiar with) is the browser. The messaging client is there as well (as it is in the 6.2.2 version of the phone simulator), but now the file manager is exposed as well. The file manager itself may (or may not) be exposed on devices with the Openwave Mobile Browser v7, but we're making it available for completeness. While there are not currently 3rd party developer APIs into the file manager exposed, it gives you a better sense of how devices with the Openwave client technology may behave. To get in to the browser, simply click on the "home" icon, enter a URL in the "go" field, or press the "Menu" softkey and select "Web". Similarly, if you wish to envoke the messaging client, from the idle state of the device, choose the "Menu" sofkey and select "Messaging."
If all you're really concerned with is testing content via the browser, then you may wish to remove the -launchBrowser false attribute from the target of the shortcut
in your start menu. Removing this attribute is also desireable if you're
integrating the Simulator into an IDE. The other big change in this release is the fact that the browser version runs in a "dual-stack" configuration. This means that there is no longer a need to download the additional WAP Plugin for end to end testing. The browser itself runs either on an HTTP stack or on a WSP stack. The default setting of the Phone Simulator v7 is running on a WAP stack connecting to the Openwave Developer Gateway (devgate2.openwave.com). More about the reasoning behind this in the "what's still under development" section. The good news is that out of the box, the Phone Simulator is ready to go for end to end WAP Push and MMS testing (please refer to the MMS Quick Start for v7 for details). The downside is that you'll have to do some additional configuration in order to access content that's either on your local machine or inside a firewall. What's still under development? If you've alreay downloaded and run Phone Simulator v7 Preview, then I'm sure you've already seen the lovely Simulator Console Window. For those of you who remember back to the days of 4.1.1. (or are still developing WML sites), this should remind you remarkably of the "Phone Information" window of old. This window is an artifiact of the fact that we're still under development here, but didn't want to delay getting this latest browser out to you in a format you could test with. The simulator console not only provides some details of the requests and responses, but also provides a mechanism for controlling some of the browser and messaging client settings. For a complete list of commands that can be applied in the Simulator Console, simply enter: help ('commands') and press the "Enter" button. The Simulator Console window is
not only like the "Phone Information" window in the Phone Simulator 6.2.2.
Notice that the "Network Information" window available in the Phone
Simulator 6.2.2 is not present in this release of Phone Simulator v7
(don't worry, it's coming back). One of the other element still under development is the Language settings. The good news is that this can be worked around by modified in the Headers tab of the device settings.  As mentioned in the previous section, perhaps the largest feature still under development is the "direct connection" which allows for accessing local (and web) content without the need for any proxy. The workaround for this in the v7 Preview release is to install a local proxy and pass requests through this local proxy. There are detailed instructions on how to install and configure the free, open-source Apache proxy to enable the browser to access content that is hosted locally, or within a firewall.The final release of the Phone Simulator v7 will have "http-direct" functionality built in. The other major "under-development" area for the v7 Phone Simulator is the documentatoin and sample code. However, since the browser handles the same content types as 6.2.2, the informatoin in XHTML-MP/CSS Reference Guide and the XHTML Style Guide still apply to this release. What else do I need to know? In this release, configuration for end to end MMS testing has been modified slightly, and you will need to provision the Phone Simulator v7 Preview as a new subcriber. The details for all of this can be found in the MMS Quick Start for v7 Preview. Also, the existing instructions for integrating the Phone Simulator in to IDE's have be validated. All you need to do is repeat the instructions for 6.2.2 using the path information to the latest install. The other good news is that Phone Simulator 6.2.2 and v7 Preview will happily co-exist and run simultaneously on your system. We have also set up a new discussion forum dedicated to handling issues related to this v7 Preview release. If you run into issues or have questions specific to this release, please post them in the discussion forum. As always, don't hesitate to drop the Openwave Developer Services team a line from our feedback form if you've got any other questions about this release of the Phone Simulator. Jack's Archives |
