MicroEmulator is a pure Java implementation of Sun J2ME (MicroEdition) for Sun J2SE 1.4 or later (Standard Edition), meant for desktop computers. This program is a cross-platform alternative to MPowerPlayer, another free MIDP emulator that I had written about last year.

Key features of MicroEmu include:

+ Add your own custom device profile if you are a developer. For end users, MicroEmu includes three default profiles - minimum, large and resizable. The resizable profile allows you to choose your own height and width.
+ Allow Network Access/Internet connection to a Midlet
+ “Save for Web”: This feature does bytecode preprocessing of your application and allows you to embed the applet into a HTML page.
+ Support for MIDP 2.0
+ Support for MMAPI (JSR 135)
+ Support for FileConnection API (JSR 75)
+ Support for Nokia APIs
+ Platform independent: Runs on Windows, Linux or Mac OSX. The only pre-requisite is that Java J2SE 1.4 or later should be installed on your PC.

To use MicroEmulator on your PC, follow the instructions below:

1) Download and extract the contents of MicroEmu to a folder on your computer.
2) Double-click on “microemulator.jar” to run the emulator. If the program does not launch, you will have to type “java -jar microemulator.jar” in a console.
3) Now go to Options –> Select device, click “Add…”, navigate to the “microemulator/devices” folder and select the device profile/skin that you want to use. For example, “microemu-device-resizable.jar” allows you to have a dynamically resizable skin.
4) Then click on File—>Open JAD File/URL and enter the path of the Midlet
5) Once MicroEmu processes the Midlet, it will display in the Midlet manager from where you can click Start to preview the Midlet.