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This section provides an overview and information on how to get started with application development for each technology.
Getting Started with Widgets
To start widget development using the LG SDK, the first thing is to set up the development environment.
- Development Environments
- Installing the LG SDK
- Setting the Editor and Skin
Introduction to Widgets
Widgets are downloadable UI applications that perform some simple functions and provide local data or data on the web. Widgets are categorized into 3 types: desktop widgets, web widgets, and mobile widgets that work on mobile devices. Mobile widgets are easy to create as they are based on standard web technologies and well suited for the limited input capabilities of mobile devices. It is also possible to provide links to several Web 2.0 services and mash-up various services to create new services.
The following illustrates the benefits of four different aspects of mobile widget services:
The following are four types of mobile widget solutions:
- Browser-based widgets use a web browser engine. They have good compatibility, but only support a limited UI.
- JavaVM-based widgets are implemented with a widget engine using Java under a JVM. It is easy to port, but difficult to communicate with native applications.
- Flash-based widgets are implemented with a widget engine using ActionScript. They support rich UIs, but suffer from performance issues.
- Proprietary widget implementations use their own widget engine. They have good performance but suffer from compatibility issues.
- LG Mobile Widgets Solution
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LG uses browser-based solutions as their standard widget solution. The LG Mobile Widgets solution is based on the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Widgets 1.0 specifications, supports a subset of the Open Mobile Terminal Platform (OMTP) BONDI 1.0 Candidate Release, and includes some LG specific APIs.
The following figure illustrates the architecture of LG Mobile Widget Solutions. ‘Widget Packages’ means downloadable widgets. ‘Application Layer’ consists of two widget management applications: ‘Widget Manager’ for downloading, registering, deleting, and configuring widgets and ‘Widget Player’ for running widget packages. The ‘SW Platform Layer’ is where the widget engine is ported.
The LG mobile widgets solution provides the following key features:
- Downloading Widgets: Supports downloading, installing, and deleting widgets.
- User Interface: Supports touchscreen, moving icons by dragging, adding or removing widget icons, foreground/ background overlays, and landscape/portrait mode.
- Phone-Specific Features: Supports secure widget API to access phone features such as camera, Call/SMS, and GPS.
Related Resources
Use the following resources to learn more about widget application development.
- Tools
- Documentation
- Forums
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