There are many Codename One resources for building native mobile apps but they are often all over the place, in this blog post I’ll try to concentrate the best resources for people who already know Java and are looking to pick up Codename One. If you don’t know Java yet, please check out this post where we discuss resources for beginners to learn Java.
Written Docs and Tutorials
• Create an Uber Clone in 7 Days – Even if you don’t purchase the full book, the free chapters available to download will help you get started quickly.
- • Developer Guide – if you haven’t read the developer guide you should! Notice that it also comes in a PDF.
- • JavaDocs – our JavaDocs include some hidden features such as the component gallery & layout gallery.
- • Sviluppare app multipiattaforma – Indice del corso introduttivo – Italian language free course for mobile cross-platform development by Francesco Galgani.
- • Port an Android app to iOS (iPhone) – a step by step guide on porting a real world Android app to Codename One and getting it onto all the major stores.
- • Chat App Tutorial – this six part series covered many ideas in Codename One including social login (Facebook, Google) IM style interface etc.
- • Using the new GUI Builder – this tutorial starts by reviewing the differences between the old and the new GUI builder followed by a review of building a simple app.
- • Working with native maps – using Google Maps in your app.
- • PSD to App Revisited – this is a remake of a great video tutorial from Steve Hannah (see below) where he covered the process of taking a Photoshop PSD design and making the app look like the PSD. The results are stunning.
- • Integrating 3rd party native SDK’s – this is one of our most ambitious tutorials it included 3 parts. Part 1, part 2 & part 3.
- • Websocket Support – this tutorial covers the cn1lib for websockets
- • Create a Gorgeous Sidemenu – 5 minute video & text tutorial on the creation of a good looking side navigation interface.
- • Introduction to In-App Purchase – this is a part of a series on in-app-purchase covering also Non-Renewable Subscriptions & Auto-Renewing Subscriptions.
- • Connecting to a MySQL Database from Codename One – includes two versions the second uses Java on the server side while the first uses a PHP backend and is arguably simpler to setup on the server for some cases.
• Using Icon Fonts Such as Fontello – in this tutorial we review icon font usage in Codename One. These are very useful for resolution independent images.
- • Avoiding Lists – A common question is how to use a “List” in Codename One. In this tutorial we explain why lists in Codename One are problematic and the strategies you can use to create a list interface.
- • Understanding the Table Component – this tutorial is pretty self explanatory.
- • Understanding device density – in a tutorial written for “back to the future day” Steve covers the nuances of device densities.
- • CSS Support – in this tutorial Steve talks about the CSS support he built for Codename One. There is also a followup article on new CSS capabilities.
- • Dynamic Autocomplete – in this tutorial we discuss the usage of an auto-complete text field and how we can use a webservice to provide suggestions to users.
- • Local notifications on iOS & Android – covered the support for firing local notifications when the app is in the background.
- • Deploy the same app multiple times – in this short tutorial we cover the process of making an app template that you can redeploy e.g. to sell similar apps to multiple customers or build a demo/release version.
- • Building Cloud-powered Native Mobile Apps with Parse.com – while parse was discontinued, parse4cn1 is still going strong with 3rd party parse alternatives.
- • Shrinking sizes & optimizing – how to reduce your application size.
- • Automating releases – this post covers the enterprise grade continuous integration support.
- • JQuery style selectors – use selectors to manipulate specific components.
- • Setup a Codename One Project from Git – covers the process of converting a git project to a local project.
There are many other tutorials, too many to list, you can see some of them in the How Do I? and that is still a partial list as it doesn’t cover the older posts from before the site migration.
Videos & Online Courses
Notice that a while back, we shifted most of our effort to the Codename One Academy. Some of the older videos below might be out of date.
- • Codename One Academy – contains both free and premium courses covering almost everything there is to know in Codename One and the tools to build full featured apps.
- • Hello world video tutorial – video covering the steps of building/running a Codename One app.
- • Todo Video Tutorial – Covers Codename One basics by walking you through the basics of building a simple Todo app.
- • What is Codename One – a thorough walkthrough of Codename One underpinnings, it’s history and how it differs from other approaches to cross platform.
- • Learn mobile programming by example – this course walks you thru the source code of the Property Cross & Dr. Sbaitso demos.
- • Build mobile iOS apps in Java – walks thru the creation of a client/server image sharing app. It covers the creation of a webservice connection to a Java webserver, file upload, camera and many other details.
- • How Do I – this is a large collection of short videos covering everything from layouts to webservices etc. Some aren’t as fresh as the others but the list is pretty comprehensive.
- • How to use the Codename One Sources – as the name suggests, this tutorial gets you started with running a Codename One app compiled against the Codename One sources from git.
- • PSD to APP – the original tutorial from Steve took the form of a video webcast. We later updated it in text form but things such as photoshop might be easier to understand in a video.
- • Cordova/PhoneGap compatibility – this isn’t just a video but it covers a lot of the ideas behind the Cordova support we added to Codename One a while back.
- • Debug a Codename One app on an Android Device – this is technically a How Do I? video but it’s a really good one so it’s listed here.
- • Codename One Webinar – Steve did a couple of Codename One webinars, the second one is here. Those were both very interesting and covered multiple different topics.
- • Dr. Sbaitso & Property Cross – this is effectively the same content as the “by example” course above but on YouTube.
- • LTS Talk – a talk I gave to LTS over cross mobile device programming.
- • JavaZone 2013 talk – a lecture covering the basic principals of Codename One.
- • Lecture from Mateja Opacic – Mateja gave a lecture at the Coding Serbia Conference and discussed Codename One.
More?
We hope to produce more content as we move forward both to replace older/outdated content and to provide more “ready made” starting points.
Our property cross and chat tutorials were very successful mostly because they represent real world types of applications developers want unlike the kitchen sink which is abstract.
These tutorials require a lot of time & effort so we don’t get to do as many as we might want.
If you have thoughts or wishlists for tutorials, we’d be happy to hear about them. Also if you have your own tutorial somewhere, feel free to post a link in the comments, as long as it’s relevant we’ll approve it thru moderation and maybe add it to the post.
Archived Comments
This post was automatically migrated from the legacy Codename One blog. The original comments are preserved below for historical context. New discussion happens in the Discussion section.
Urfi Mirza — November 3, 2016 at 9:25 am (permalink)
Urfi Mirza says:
HI….How can I create a Mobile app using NetBeans 8 Codeone project for Mobile phone deleted file recovery program? or is there any API that I can incude in my project and complete the project…..Thanks
Shai Almog — November 4, 2016 at 5:51 am (permalink)
Shai Almog says:
Hi,
mobile phones block low level filesystem access so an app like that will be impractical natively without rooting the device which is problematic even on Android.
Daniel Charlie — April 21, 2017 at 10:08 am (permalink)
Daniel Charlie says:
Interesting topics. nice information helped me a lot. if it possible share some more………..
Juan Carlos Vásquez — October 24, 2019 at 6:26 pm (permalink)
Juan Carlos Vásquez says:
Hello, can you post a tutorial on how to login to a backend server via MySQL-PHP-JSON? Thank you!
Discussion
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