Groceries MIDlet

Platform: J2ME MIDP 2.0

Description: The Groceries application can be used to create grocery lists and keep track on what items you have already collected. The application can store multiple lists and one list can hold multiple items.

License: GPL (General Public License)
The source code with NetBeans IDE 4.1 project files is available under the GPL license.

Screenshots taken from Symbian Series 60 device:

Groceries splash screenGroceries menu
Grocery listsGrocery items

Version history:

    Version 1.1 (August 31th, 2005)
    - New Feature: Ability to arrange items in a list.
    Version 1.0 (May 30th, 2005)
    - First release

Downloads
Download binary (JAR+JAD)
Download source + binary + NetBeans project files

  • http://bluelightning32.blogspot.com Kyle Stemen

    First of all, I have to admit I don’t own a PDA or cell phone (I don’t talk enough on phones to justify it yet), but I have thought about what a good grocery type app could do on a PDA.

    I think it would be useful if the program could keep track of the prices of items in the store. Nothing too fancy like a barcode reader, just a way for the user to enter in the item name, price, and store name. Then when you’re in some grocery store, you could look at an item on the shelf, enter it in its price, and see how it compares to prices from other shopping trips and other stores.

    Maybe the program could synchronize with a computer if the data got too large. Or even synchronize over the internet with other users. It might even be able to pick which nearby store would be the cheapest for the items in your grocery list.

    Just some ideas, although they might be a bit too hard…

  • http://www.substanceofcode.com Tommi Laukkanen

    Thank you for the great ideas! The pricing feature sounds like a very good idea and wouldn’t be too difficult thing to implement (without the synchronizing part). This way the user could check how much his/hers groceries are going to cost as the items would have the pricing property set to them.

    When editing the grocery list the user would just pick items from the items catalogue and could change the current store to compare the list’s price between entered stores. The user could manage the item and store catalogues from the separate views.

    If I would have a spare J2EE server it would also be nice to try out the synchronization part… :)

  • http://schrepfler.blogspot.com Srgjan Srepfler

    Hi,
    I’ve noticed the download links don’t work anymore?

  • http://www.substanceofcode.com Tommi Laukkanen

    Thanks for pointing that out. My site was hacked few weeks ago and some of the scripts are still broken. The download links should now work.

  • Mayank

    your applications are great. i got ur link by google. now i download all ur applications for R&D. i am working in j2me gamming but i want to swich gamming to application bcoz i am crazzy about applications. so your application will help me a lot for study the jsrs and their implementations.

    if u have some other links from which i can download th application for study purpose then please send it to me my mail id mayank.be.mib@gmail.com

    Thanks & Regards
    Mayank Kumar Varshney
    India

  • Nuno Ricardo

    In fact, Kyle Stemen is right: software to compare prices between stores is a valuable tool. I have been searching for a free software like that, but I still have not found one. Making a spreadsheet in Excel isn’t practical, I’ve tried that. I’m still hoping someone develop a software to do this.

  • pan mietek

    hi
    great one.
    One thing badly needed – export list or directly send it via the bluetooth
    Now i could easy share (get) shopping lists from my wife’s phone and alway have all of the list.
    Is it possoble to add this feature to this application?

  • http://www.substanceofcode.com Tommi Laukkanen

    @pan: Thanks! I have few ideas for handling the shared shopping lists. I have already started coding a web app that for example my wife and I could use during the day and when I leave the office I would sync the shopping list to my phone and start shopping. So I’d say that this feature is coming, but not in the near future…

  • pan mietek

    thx for the answer. I;m patient man, i can wait :).
    Is there any kind of the newsletter on your website? If it is, please put my e-mail into it, ’cause i wouln’t like to miss changes in your applications (which i recognize as very handy btw)
    regards

  • http://www.substanceofcode.com Tommi Laukkanen

    @pan: I usually announce new versions with blog entries. You can subscribe to my blog RSS feed by clicking the “Entries (RSS)” link in the bottom of the page.

  • bob

    Good stuff here. Is there a way of modifying the list so that you have more memory available for items? Seems to be a count down for every letter you enter. You can tell I have no idea about this programing language.

  • orzech

    what about a communication feature?
    It would be very usefull to get a shopping list by SMS.
    It could be ordinary txt SMS, one user makes a shopping list in the “Groceries” then sends the list by sms (it could be simple list as eggs+;bread+;milk-). and the second user wolud import it from sms to own “Groceries” app.
    The +/- signs would tell app if particular position should be marked as “done”.
    In case two persons had same list at the morning and the 1st one made it partially.

  • http://www.substanceofcode.com Tommi Laukkanen

    @orzech: Nice idea. Maybe it could be solved by using a web server in a middle. Java apps can’t access normal SMS messages from the phone thanks to the security issues.

  • georg

    Moi Tommi, I just tried Groceries, it’s running and mostly what I wanted – I just have one major trouble – I can only see the first 19 characters of en item and I am unable to scroll, edit, open the item, so the last 100 chars are “lost” :-( Hence my RFE: In the item list, add menu entry “edit” for items (also useful to add prices or the like) and bind left/right to scroll in the item text in the list. Both shall not be too hard to implement. If you send me the source, I’m happy to code it myself.

    Could you tell where the data is stored so one can make a backup of the lists? Thanks and kind regards, Georg

  • Jeff B

    Hi,

    Nice little program. Just one question? Where does it store the lists and is this a file that is accessible and readable (i.e. a text file) or is it stored in some sort of db? It would be nice to be able to pull the list file off the phone, update it by hand on a computer and reload it to the phone. Thanks for the program and any assistance.

  • http://www.substanceofcode.com Tommi Laukkanen

    @Jeff B: List is stored into internal MIDP record store which is not readable. Some sort of web service would be handy to act as a central repository and so that users could edit lists from browser and then sync lists back to the phone.

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  • http://omeunokia.blogspot.com Miguel

    Hi,

    yesterday I installed Groceries MIDlet and writted a litle review about the program in my blog (http://omeunokia.blogspot.com/2008/11/groceries-midlet.html).

    It’s a very usefull program, at least for me because I keep always forgetting the list in the cold storage room :)

    Are you planning to do more updates? A nice feature is to have a predefined list that we can add produtcs and when making a new list the possibility to choose products from the predefined produts. The ideia of the predefined list is to help in produts that are always needed and it was great if the list could be created by the user (I’m saying that because I’m from Portugal and if the list as auto-generated it will mix both languages, English and Portuguese).

    Congratulations for your program.

    Best Regards
    Miguel

  • http://www.substanceofcode.com Tommi Laukkanen

    @Miguel: Thanks for the review! I’m most likely not doing any updates for this application in the near future. I might do some web app for this that would work with the mobile client though.

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  • Soraya

    HELP! I’ve downloaded the Groceries jad & jar, transfered it to my LG Lotus but it won’t install, it doesn’t recognize it… Any suggestions?
    Thanks bunches!

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  • http://www.flyinglist.com Tal

    Hi,

    I have developed a similar application, where in addition you can send/recieve lists via SMS.

    Check it out at http://www.flyinglist.com, it costs 1.00$ which I hope you can afford. There is also a demo free download.

    Cheers, Tal

  • http://www.no-sorry.com sniper

    how about implementing load and store shopping lists from and to the filesystem ?

    thanks

  • http://www.substanceofcode.com Tommi Laukkanen

    @sniper: Thanks for the idea. I’ll add filesystem load/save feature to new Mobile Task Manager application. You can use that the same way as Groceries application.

  • Ionnut

    Hello!
    I have downloaded you source code of the application and when I opend it with the j2me it surprised me that the language program noticed that there where errors because it doesen’t seem to find the substanceofcode package and it noticed some other problems like “cannot “find symbol symbol: class string location: class substanceofcode.GroceryList”.
    How do I make the substance of code package?
    I would be so gratefull if you could help me out because I have to present a similar app at my university.

    • Ibuntonjr

      Hi,

      Sorry for the delay.
      I have added a google project with this source code:
      http://code.google.com/p/groceries-midlet/

      Tommi and I are the project owners although Tommi will not actively participate.

      I was able to use Netbeans to successfully compile the source. I hope that this resolves your problem.

  • Ibuntonjr

    I have added a google project with this source code:
    http://code.google.com/p/groceries-midlet/

    Tommi and I are the project owners although Tommi will not actively participate.