Comment Open Source J2ME + Palm solution (Score 1) 22
I have an Open Source solution that might meet your needs.
We captured signatures using J2ME and off-the-shelf Palm devices. We persisted the sigs as SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics, an XML dialect -- http://www.svg.org/) in a local datastore. Later, we used a custom JSync Conduit to slurp the data off the devices and upload it to a waiting server during the HotSync process. The server (Tomcat -- http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat) ran Apache Batik (http://xml.apache.org/batik) to convert the SVG into JPEG for web presentation.
We used Apache HTTPClient (http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/httpclient/) and Jason Hunter's com.oreilly.servlet (http://www.servlets.com/cos/) to do a MultipartRequest file upload. This allowed us to provide a more traditional HTML form to upload the sigs as a backup if the conduit failed. You could just as easily use Apache Axis (http://ws.apache.org/axis/) to catch the upload as a web service.
All of the technologies involved are open source, so you can string them together yourself.
Or, you can grab some rough source code as a jumping off point. I was very clear about my intentions to open source the J2ME app from the start of the project. I named it "Scratch" (as in "what was itching me at the time...") Your post motivated me to get it online (https://gen4j.dev.java.net/servlets/ProjectDocume ntList?folderID=0). Long term, the project should be accessible at http://scratch.dev.java.net.
Currently, I just have the client app posted. Sadly, there is no documentation at this point (but there will be soon, I promise!). It's only 5 classes, so I hope that their roles will be self evident.
The conduit needs some serious refactoring. That will get posted w/in 30 days. I am presenting a case study/how-to on this very subject at two different conference in Sept, so this code will be at the top of my list of ToDos...
Good luck, and hope this helps.
We captured signatures using J2ME and off-the-shelf Palm devices. We persisted the sigs as SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics, an XML dialect -- http://www.svg.org/) in a local datastore. Later, we used a custom JSync Conduit to slurp the data off the devices and upload it to a waiting server during the HotSync process. The server (Tomcat -- http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat) ran Apache Batik (http://xml.apache.org/batik) to convert the SVG into JPEG for web presentation.
We used Apache HTTPClient (http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/httpclient/) and Jason Hunter's com.oreilly.servlet (http://www.servlets.com/cos/) to do a MultipartRequest file upload. This allowed us to provide a more traditional HTML form to upload the sigs as a backup if the conduit failed. You could just as easily use Apache Axis (http://ws.apache.org/axis/) to catch the upload as a web service.
All of the technologies involved are open source, so you can string them together yourself.
Or, you can grab some rough source code as a jumping off point. I was very clear about my intentions to open source the J2ME app from the start of the project. I named it "Scratch" (as in "what was itching me at the time...") Your post motivated me to get it online (https://gen4j.dev.java.net/servlets/ProjectDocum
Currently, I just have the client app posted. Sadly, there is no documentation at this point (but there will be soon, I promise!). It's only 5 classes, so I hope that their roles will be self evident.
The conduit needs some serious refactoring. That will get posted w/in 30 days. I am presenting a case study/how-to on this very subject at two different conference in Sept, so this code will be at the top of my list of ToDos...
Good luck, and hope this helps.
