installing BlackBerry Eclipse JDE plugin on Mac OS X

MacOS

Question or issue on macOS:

Is it possible to install BlackBerry Eclipse JDE plugin on Mac OS X? I tried to install the plugin through the eclipse update and also by downloading the zip file from the BlackBerry site.

This is the most unintuitive process for getting set up in development environment. BlackBerry site does not make it easy.

How to solve this problem?

Solution no. 1:

The supported Blackberry development arena is very Windows centric. The compiler (rapc) is a windows executable. I have zero Mac experience so I can’t tell if this will help but this guy seems to have been successful compiling. There may be some help there.

Good luck.


Edit: while correct at the time the question was answered, since then, a Mac Eclipse plugin has been released. See other answers.

Solution no. 2:

As of today RIM offers a version of their development plugin for Mac OS. Check it out:

https://developer.blackberry.com/java/download/#eclipse

Solution no. 3:

RIMM has released a MacOS Eclipse plug-in for Blackberry Development: http://na.blackberry.com/eng/developers/javaappdev/macosx.jsp

While there is no built-in simulator, the plug-in DOES support USB tethered device debugging for the Torch 9800 handhelds. I plan to get one; they are ~$499 w/ no contract. With a Torch and the new plug-in, Blackberry development is possible without using a VM. (Finally!)

see this post

Solution no. 4:

You can get some stuff working – such as compiling – but the simulator especially is a windows program. I run the BB Environment under VMWare Fusion on my Mac Book Pro.

And I couldn’t agree more that they don’t make it easy. I did a blog post a while back that may clear up some stuff (it does assume running under Windows though).

Solution no. 5:

Yes. There are still no simulators on OS X so if you want to develop on mac, you need a physical device.

Solution no. 6:

Blackberry development on anything other than Windows is a chore. I was successful in getting RAPC version 4.3 to play nicely on OS X but anything older than 4.3 and it gets tricky. (If I had 35 hours in a day I could get it to work.) If you run with my solution for 4.3 then DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT target anything older than OS 4.3. I could almost get the emulator running on OS X following a tutorial for Linux but I had trouble with X11 issues. I was also unsuccessful in getting the emulator to run on Mepis Linux most likely due to differing versions of Wine. With a little elbow grease you could get good development support on OS X by running an OTA server (using my modified Antenna support for deploying cod files) locally and opening a port to/from the www. Your compiler (4.3 and up), and your signature tool should work. Debug is a no-go and while Blackberry USB driver support on Linux is still not done (to my limited knowledge), you’ll need to do OTA loads instead of the speedier Javaloader.exe. My advice is to use the Eclipse plugin for WTK (if it works by now on OS X) and design the general look/feel of your app. Then do local deploys and test on device. There’s always VMWare/Parallels/Virtual Box for the other stuff.

Solution no. 7:

“RIMM has released a MacOS Eclipse plug-in for Blackberry Development: h t t p : //na.blackberry.com/eng/developers/javaappdev/macosx.jsp”

If you download, unzip, there will be a message on macosx 10.7: the powerpc app isn’t supported. 🙂

So those Intel based ( iPhone development machines ) aren’t supported, as native.

screenshot

If you download the Eclipse plugin from plugin site:
http://www.blackberry.com/go/eclipseUpdate/3.6/java
they will install a plugin for 5.0 and 7.0 ( couldn’t see 6.0) and after Restart will not be available the Blackberry application wizard ( it seems it is completely useless on mac on windows it is working)

As I see right now you must have windows or in Parallel, or in WM or Bootcamp, not sure about Wine.
Also there were a post with SSD is running acceptable speed ( faster than in native windows, but HDD). I didn’t tested. Doesn’t worth the Fuckberry development a windows retail license.

Hope this helps!