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

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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.

From stackoverflow

• 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.

  Mat Nadrofsky : +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...

  Paperino : 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.

• 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)

  Mat Nadrofsky : +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!

  Anthony Rizk : 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.

  Mat Nadrofsky : 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.

• 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.)

• 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

  Mat Nadrofsky : 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.
• • vaks.in's Blog blackberry section new
  • codeforfun.wordpress.com new - usefull set of articles about rapc, preverify etc
  • RIM KB Links new
  • Developing Custom Java Applications BlackBerry new - nice short overview presentation
  • developerlife.com new
  • blackberry.com: BlackBerry Developer's Blog
  • blogspot.com: The BlackBerry Developer

  • blogspot.com: BlackBerry Tricks and Tips and Codes

    Set of useful dev blogs with bb section:

  • coderholic.com
  • devsushi.com
  • slashdev.com
  • Wireless - Blackberry Codes And News
  • riccomini.name
  • naviina.eu - BlackBerry & Android blog
  • Michael’s Weblog

  Other:

  • blackberryblog.com - code section of bb oriented blog
  • blackberry developer journal topics
  • blackberry developer newsletter - sometimes there are good dev articles
  • Tronyx's important & popular blackberry links - that's where a get Plazmic CDK from
  • blogspot.com: BlackBerry Development Blog

  Standalone articles:

  • Retrieving a Stack Trace from the BlackBerry Event Log by REX.john
  • Retrieving blackberry OS version programmatically

  Also there is a set of articles on codeproject:

  • Creating a Blackberry Game by Toni Westbrook (1|2|3|4|5|6)
  • Pushing HTML content to a Blackberry By Steven Berkovitz
  • End-to-End Real World BlackBerry Application By MiamiCoder (1|2|3|4|5|6)
  • BlackBerry Java Application Development Using Visual Studio By Ponnurangam D
  • Creating a XY Chart/Plot as a BlackBerry Custom Field