Screen rotation issue

[MJK]

The Nokia N97 is an example of a phone which supports both portrait and landscape mode. The user can change it anytime by opening the keyboard. When this happens, the phone automatically turns everything to landscape mode. If MMF2 java app is set to rotate the screen by 90 degrees (to make it appear properly in portrait mode), the result is an unusable app. See examples below with my test app:



The first pic above is good. Because of being able to rotate the screen in MMF2, the app looks good in portrait mode, even though built as a normal 640x360 app in MMF2.

Now, the user changes the phone orientation (not app orientation, but the whole phone UI) to landscape mode:



This is how the app looks now; it becomes unusable. Changing back to portrait luckily works, though sometimes there are some graphical glitches on the screen. The problem is more severe however when the user launches the app in landscape mode and may not know that it works only in portrait. As a developer I need a way to communicate this to the user.

What would be great, is

1) ability to detect (in MMF2 java app) whether the phone orientation is currently landscape or portrait

--> this would enable the developer to display a message to the user, "change back to portrait mode" or similar or switch to a frame that is built to optimize usability in these type of cases

Here is some discussion on how to do this in J2ME: http://discussion.forum.nokia.com/forum/showthread.php?t=127977

2) same as above + ability to change the screen rotation at runtime. This might not be feasible due to how MMF2 is programmed (?) but even (1) would be really helpful.

[MJK]

Any comment? Is (1) possible in future release of MMF2 Java runtime or rather unrealistic?

[Francois]

It is possible. I have to look at it.

[MJK]

Thanks

[Francois]

OK, I have converted the NokiaKeys object into a MobileUtilities object. It contains the detection of the keys, but also things to manage the rotation of the screen and the application.
MJK could you test it for me, as I do not have a phone that allows screen rotation?

Thanks for you help.

EDIT: I've removed the file, ask me if you want it. Yves.

[MJK]

That was fast! Sure, I'll test it later today on the N97.

[DJFuego]

Is there any chance of being able to incorporate the gyro sensor into this or any other java build?

[Francois]

The problem is that the API to handle the sensor depends on every manufacturer. It is a really hard job to handle all the possible APIs. I just dont have time for this. We'll see...

[MJK]

OK, I have converted the NokiaKeys object into a MobileUtilities object. It contains the detection of the keys, but also things to manage the rotation of the screen and the application.
MJK could you test it for me, as I do not have a phone that allows screen rotation?

Ok, just tested this. Rotation worked at runtime, yay! The only thing - essential one - which didn't work was "Get screen orientation"; when I tried to retrieve it to a counter, it just stayed at 0 all the time. "Get window rotation" worked fine.

So basically if you're able to make the Get orientation function work, then this should be perfect. Because that would obviously allow us to do something simple but very useful like this:

Orientation = 0
-> set window rotation to 1

Orientation =1
-> set window rotation to 2
(or similar)

[Francois]

OK, I have another way of implementing it, but if this one does not work, I do not know what to do...
Before I send you the file, can you tell me if your version of MMF is build 249?