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BlackBerry Lookin’ Good with GUI and Theme Developer Tools

By: , IntoMobile
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at 5:38 PM

There’s no denying that the overall BlackBerry UI feels a bit old, but today at the BlackBerry Developer Conference, RIM took some big steps to freshen up. A new Theme Studio and will allow developers to really go to town, including options for screen transitions, animations, and all of the usual tools needed to put a theme together. The Studio includes a Theme Builder for the usual font, icon placement, dialog box colouring, etc., and a Composer to create animated graphics. Awhile back in OS 4.5, themes saw a pretty beefy upgrade, and this new tool will equally open up some doors. A bunch of Adobe tools plug right in as well, making it easy to import assets and even preview themes on a device proper attached via USB.

On top of the new theme tool, a new plug-in for Eclipse should make app developers lives easier by opening up a lot of user interface options. All you have to do is drag and drop elements you want (like a carousel, or picture viewer), and you’ll see them all on various BlackBerry devices, in full WYSIWYG glory.

For a closer look at the Theme Studio, you can get downloading over here, and the new GUI plug-in will be available mid-2010.

About The Author

Simon Sage

Simon Sage’s education largely surrounded writing, technology and online community, leading him to begin his blogging career at www.BlackBerryCool.com and to quickly discover a vibrant and active community surrounding BlackBerry and mobile technology. In exploring RIM’s platform, he has learned what enterprises are looking for in mobility as well as what makes the innocuous BlackBerry so appealing to them. Recently Simon’s been covering RIM’s gradual move into an already-crowded consumer market, and the impact of burgeoning challengers, such as the iPhone, as well as long-time leaders, like Nokia, on BlackBerry’s advancement. With plenty of content under his belt, Simon will be branching off a bit to see what other smartphone manufacturers are working on while still using BlackBerry as a barometer. At IntoMobile, you can count on his posts being even-handed, well-informed and thought-out.

  • Puneet Gupta

    Searching google to find the release of drap and drop plug-in for eclipse but couldnt find one except this link.

    So we are past mid-oct…………is the new studio released or still under development?