Disable Nokia On Screen Keypad for the applications by editing JAR (j2ME) manifest file without having to repacking or make use of programming tools

I have a phone that runs on Symbian S60v5. The phone is a cool phone as I can use it for GPS navigation, decent camera, ergonomic (no awkward function/design like some other phones i have used before that put me off. Design and function make sense to me, no impractical but just down to earth.), sturdy , stable signal reception and good call quality.

However, like any phone OSes, there are always bugs in it and Symbian makes no exception. And of all bugs in Symbian S60v5, there is one particular bug in the Symbian that really annoys me. It is this Java Suite Setting that sits inside the Installed App menu (Symbian Application Manager). The Installed Applications has a memory constraint bug that it cannot load up if there are too many applications/games installed into your phone. Especially if you have upgraded your memory card.

When the Installed App could not load up. There is no way that you can change the Java Suite Settings of your Java application/game.
What is in the Java Suite Settings? You can turn off the on screen keypad and the default orientation of the application in it.

And without that, I need to live with games/application with a redundant ugly on screen keypad which I do not need knowing my phone is touch screen and those games/application support touch screen. On screen keypad is only needed if the applications/games required keypad to operate but not in this case.

I google quite a bit but the working solution that people proposed is to reduce the number of applications/games in your phone. This is not a solution because I need those applications/games.

So, how do i overcome the problem.

Edit the J2ME jar file before you install it to your phone. And it is not difficult too.

1. Download and install WinRAR.
2. Download the Jar file of your application.
3. Open the JAR file using WinRAR
4. Locate the manifest file. Normally in META-INF\MANIFEST.MF
5. Edit the manifest file using Notepad.


Add lines

Nokia-MIDlet-On-Screen-Keypad: no
Nokia-MIDlet-App-Orientation: portrait

or

Nokia-MIDlet-App-Orientation: landscape

6. Save and exit the notepad and WinRAR would prompt if you would want to update your archive. Select Yes.

That's all you need to do. Install the JAR again and you would find that the on screen keypad is gone and orientation default has been changed for your application/game.

Comments

Ivo Rebola said…
Fantastic! Thanks!! I've been searching for this info for a long time :)

Really, really, thank you!
Unknown said…
I'm really not founding any word to give thanks to you... Really, really thanx a lot... Go ahead with symbian...

Popular posts from this blog

Outlook : "operation failed, object could not be found. " when trying to close a PST.

Troubleshooting Outlook Express (IMAP, POP3, HTTP, NEWS) with the log file

MSSQL GROUP_CONCAT