Are all Java applets Active X?

[Z]

Every applet or JApplet that I create and run causes IE 7 to warn me
that I am about to use Active X.

Is there a way to build/write applets and JApplets so that they do not
make use of Active X and, thus, do not cause this warning? Or is it
unavoidable?

 

[Andrew Thompson]

Every applet or JApplet that I create and run causes IE 7 to warn me
that I am about to use Active X.

Is there a way to build/write applets and JApplets so that they do not
make use of Active X and, thus, do not cause this warning?

If this is that Eolas patent thing, you
might try writing the applet element using
JavasCript, which supposedly avoids the user
having to 'click OK' the applet.

...Or is it
unavoidable?

Or you might just launch the applet using
web start*, to avoid this problem with IE,
the problems the JS based solution will
introduce for browsers with JS disabled,
the next problem with IE, the problems
with other browsers that have not yet
been reported..

* <http://www.physci.org/jws/#jtest>

Andrew T.

 

[Oliver Wong]

Every applet or JApplet that I create and run causes IE 7 to warn me that
I am about to use Active X.

Is there a way to build/write applets and JApplets so that they do not
make use of Active X and, thus, do not cause this warning? Or is it
unavoidable?

Applets (and JApplets) and ActiveX are two completely unrelated
technologies (one evidence of this is that Linux and Mac desktops typically
have zero support for ActiveX whatsoever, and yet they have no trouble
running Java Applets). The warning is thus misleading and leading you down a
false trail.

- Oliver

 

[Daniel Dyer]

Applets (and JApplets) and ActiveX are two completely unrelated
technologies (one evidence of this is that Linux and Mac desktops
typically
have zero support for ActiveX whatsoever, and yet they have no trouble
running Java Applets). The warning is thus misleading and leading you
down a
false trail.

Isn't Sun's Java plugin for IE implemented as an ActiveX control?

Dan.

 

[Steven J. Sobol]

Isn't Sun's Java plugin for IE implemented as an ActiveX control?

Yes, and the documented workarounds for ActiveX activation will work.

 

[Andrew Thompson]

Yes, and the documented workarounds for ActiveX activation will work.

Some of the earliest solutions I saw to this,
involved *writing* the applet element using
JS. Later solutions got more subtle and
involved a single script placed in the head,
whereas the page content itself did not require
any changes.

I am guessing the latter solution has the JS
navigating the page DOM, looking for applets
(or other ActiveX controls) - either to directly
enable them, or to remove and re-add them.

Note that while the latter solution degrades
gracefully to 'just the way it is now', the
earlier one risks showing no applet at all,
should JS be disabled*.

I would strongly recommend using one of
the later 'single script in the head' type
solutions if you decide to go this way.

* No, I do not /know/ of anybody that would
allow Java in their browser, but no JS.

Andrew T.

 

[Oliver Wong]

Hi,



Can someone please tell me what exactly "Sun's Java plugin for IE" is, and
why someone would use it over and above whatever Microsoft ship's with IE
already?

I'm a bit hesitant to jump into this, as it looks like I was wrong about
browser architecture before, but...

Most webbrowsers need plugins to handle various content types. For
example, there's a "Flash" plugin made by Macromedia for handling Flash
content (you've seen Flash content if you've ever used YouTube to view
movies, for example). You download the plugin, it integrates with your
browser (whether IE, netscape-based (e.g. FireFox), or Opera) and then your
browser can now display Flash content.

Similarly, you need a Java plugin to display Java applets in your
browser. Unlike Flash, a couple of companies has "competing" plugins that
all supprot Java. Sun has one such plugin, and Microsoft used to have a
plugin, but I think they discontinued it when they discontinued their JVM.

I haven't used IE7 much, but from my understanding, Microsoft does not
ship a Java plugin at all with their browsers (not anymore, anyway -- they
used to ship their own JVM a couple of years ago, but as you've noted, it's
been discontinued). So you need to get the plugin from somewhere, and Sun's
plugin is the most commonly used one.

Is it also going away when MS pulls support for their JVM?

I think Sun has no plans to discontinue their Java products, including
their Java plugin (meaning it'll probably stick around for a while). Sun
also said they'll release their implemention as open source and when that
happens, you're guaranteed that it will never "go away".

Is it the bit of code that loads Applets from the codebase (which would
explain a lot of things)

Yes.

I have downloaded and am running Sun's SDK 1.6 with the Java HotSpot
client
VM on Windows2000 IE 6. Did I have to do something different to get this
"plugin"?

When you install the SDK, it also installs the JRE as a sub-step of the
installation process. The plugin is included in the JRE, so you should have
the plugin now.

Is it only IE7? This really sounds disgusting :-(

I'm gonna avoid this question, since it seems like I don't know as much
about ActiveX as I thougth I did.

Anyone got a reference for the "documented workarounds"?

Try:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d.../author/dhtml/overview/activating_activex.asp
http://activecontent.blogspot.com/

- Oliver

 

[Richard Maher]

Hi,

Yes, and the documented workarounds for ActiveX activation will work.

Can someone please tell me what exactly "Sun's Java plugin for IE" is, and
why someone would use it over and above whatever Microsoft ship's with IE
already?

Is it also going away when MS pulls support for their JVM?

Is it the bit of code that loads Applets from the codebase (which would
explain a lot of things)

I have downloaded and am running Sun's SDK 1.6 with the Java HotSpot client
VM on Windows2000 IE 6. Did I have to do something different to get this
"plugin"?

Is it only IE7? This really sounds disgusting :-(

Anyone got a reference for the "documented workarounds"?

Cheers Richard Maher

PS. Sorry if this has been discussed before. I'm always a bit late.

 

[Daniel Dyer]

Can someone please tell me what exactly "Sun's Java plugin for IE" is,
and
why someone would use it over and above whatever Microsoft ship's with IE
already?

The Java plugin is part of the Java runtime distribution. The plugin
itself is a wrapper around the Java virtual machine. As far as I am
aware, there are two plugins - both wrapping the same JVM. One is an
ActiveX control and is used by Internet Explorer. The other is a plugin
that conforms to the Netscape/Mozilla plugin interface and is used by
Mozilla-based browsers. Opera used to use the Netscape plugin, I'm not
sure if they still do (they were at some point, on Linux at least,
launching the JVM directly).

Microsoft's JVM is compatible (mostly) with version 1.1 of Java. 1.1 is
ten years old, 6.0 being the most recent version. 1.1 lacks many core
library classes that we have been taking for granted for years, most
significantly the Collections Framework and Swing. Without Swing you are
effectively restricted to GUIs built using AWT, which provides only basic
UI widgets (no tables, trees, tabs, split panes etc.). Without the
Collections Framework you either have to use the limited collections
classes available (Vector and Hashtable) or write your own. You may also
have trouble using 3rd party libraries since many will have API
dependencies on the Collection/List/Set/Map interfaces.

I have downloaded and am running Sun's SDK 1.6 with the Java HotSpot
client
VM on Windows2000 IE 6. Did I have to do something different to get this
"plugin"?

No, it's bundled with it. You may have to change the settings in the
control panel to determine which browsers use it.

Dan.

 

[Daniel Dyer]

You may also have trouble using 3rd party libraries since many will have
API dependencies on the Collection/List/Set/Map interfaces.

And even if they aren't, they are probably compiled with a more recent
class file format that the Microsoft VM doesn't understand.

Dan.

 

[Steven J. Sobol]

Some of the earliest solutions I saw to this,
involved *writing* the applet element using
JS. Later solutions got more subtle and
involved a single script placed in the head,
whereas the page content itself did not require
any changes.

One of the simplest workarounds, and I believe this one is endorsed by
Microsoft, is to create a container like a DIV and set the innerHTML
attribute...

 

[Steven J. Sobol]

Can someone please tell me what exactly "Sun's Java plugin for IE" is, and
why someone would use it over and above whatever Microsoft ship's with IE
already?

Microsoft Java is based on the JDK 1.1.x VM.

Is it also going away when MS pulls support for their JVM?

No, it's not; it's a Sun product, not a Microsoft product.

Is it the bit of code that loads Applets from the codebase (which would
explain a lot of things)

Yes, that's done by the Java plugin.

I have downloaded and am running Sun's SDK 1.6 with the Java HotSpot client
VM on Windows2000 IE 6. Did I have to do something different to get this
"plugin"?

If you don't have it installed, go to Sun's consumer website at
java.com to download the browser plugin.

Is it only IE7? This really sounds disgusting :-(

No, it's IE6 too, and it was done because Microsoft didn't want to pay
Eolas for the patents they have on automated ActiveX component
activation. It's a legal issue, not a technical one, and I doubt M$
would have done it if they didn't have to to avoid paying Eolas tons
of money.

Anyone got a reference for the "documented workarounds"?

Google "activex activation", and start here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555662 (Related to Visual Studio but
is relevant to any HTML page, even a hand-coded page)

The solution documented in that KnowledgeBase article should work with
IE and still maintain compatibility with all other modern web browsers.

 

[Z]

One of the simplest workarounds, and I believe this one is endorsed by
Microsoft, is to create a container like a DIV and set the innerHTML
attribute...

DIV?

One more time, please, but in English!

 

[Alex Hunsley]

DIV?

One more time, please, but in English!

He means DIV tag.
http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/_DIV.html

lex

 

[Chris Uppal]

Can someone please tell me what exactly "Sun's Java plugin for IE" is, and
why someone would use it over and above whatever Microsoft ship's with IE
already?

That suggests that you may currently be relying on MS's implementation of Java
for your applets. If so then the relationship between Java and JavaScript may
be closer than you'll find it easy to achieve otherwise[*]. I don't know for
sure if that's true -- this is just a warning to check your design (discussed
in other threads here) to see if it's still practical when using a real
JVM/plug-in.

-- chris

[*] If my distant memory is correct, the MS JVM exposes all Java classes as COM
objects, and their JavaScript implementation can call COM directly. Neither
are true in other environments.

 

[Andrew Thompson]

....
One of the simplest workarounds, and I believe this one is endorsed by
Microsoft,
*

..is to create a container like a DIV and set the innerHTML
attribute...

Do you have a reference for that?
The only info. I could find at MS that
dealt with 'Microsoft activex innerhtml'
<http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/workshop/author/
dhtml/overview/activating_activex.asp>

*Every* one of those fixes was dependent
on JS support.

* Oh, and 'recommended by MS'? You would
have more chance of convincing me if you'd
said 'recommended by Bozo the psychopath
clown'.

Andrew T.

 

[Andrew Thompson]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555662 (Related to Visual Studio but
is relevant to any HTML page, even a hand-coded page)

...and particularly relevant to my earlier warning
about writing the entire element using JS.

To quote the help page..

"
...
3) document.write('<OBJECT id="myControl1"
name="myControl1"
classid="WindowsActiveX.dll#WindowsActiveX.WindowsUserControl"
width=600 height=272 > </OBJECT>');'
"

Andrew T.

 

[Andy Dingley]

Every applet or JApplet that I create and run causes IE 7 to warn me
that I am about to use Active X.

So don't use IE....

This is a bogus piece of crap invented when M$oft threw their toys out
of the pram after falling out with Sun. Although Java is unrelated to
ActiveX, M$oft's IE implementation of support for it conflates and
confuses the two.

There are well-documented work-arounds, but they're fairly sucky HTML
and shouldn't be used blindly, for risk of confusing other browsers.

* If it's your own browser, upgrade away from IE.

* If it's an intranet, set up the trust settings to trust yoru
servers.

* If it's teh intawebs, switch to Java Web Start, rather than applets.

 

[Richard Maher]

Hi Chris,

Before responding to your post (and going to bed) can I ask you a quick
question: -

I'm calling my Applet like this 'var chan =
document.getElementById("myApplet")' and inside my class definition that
extends applet I have a variable "pipe" that is an instance of the
Tier3Socket class and I want JavaScript to be able to invoke methods in
"pipe" and I am getting a null pointer error if I try and say "byte_count =
chan.pipe.readMessage(2)".

a) Can I only call public methods at the Applet Class level from JS? (No big
deal)
b) If I say "var getClass = chan.pipe" can I then invoke getClass.xxx()
methods?
c) Is it just that I haven't said "public" when I declared "Tier3Socket
pipe;" (What is the default anyway?)

I will try it out but If you've got time to reply then please do.

That suggests that you may currently be relying on MS's implementation of Java
for your applets. If so then the relationship between Java and JavaScript may
be closer than you'll find it easy to achieve otherwise[*]. I don't know for
sure if that's true -- this is just a warning to check your design (discussed
in other threads here) to see if it's still practical when using a real
JVM/plug-in.

Everything I'm looking at (control panel, console etc) says "Sun
Microsystems Inc. Java HotSpot Client VM 1.6.0-b105"; short of running
Microsofts MSJVM remover tool, I don't know what else to do. Then Daniel
Dyer said this: -

[As far as I am
aware, there are two plugins - both wrapping the same JVM. One is an
ActiveX control and is used by Internet Explorer. The other is a plugin
that conforms to the Netscape/Mozilla plugin interface and is used by
Mozilla-based browsers.]

This would explain the difference between my Appletviewer retrieval of the
JAR file and that of IE. But hey I just want to get this working (hopefully
by this weekend) and if you would be kind enough to look over the code then,
I would be more than happy if you could point out dependencies and where it
will fall over in a screaming heap

Cheers Richard Maher

Can someone please tell me what exactly "Sun's Java plugin for IE" is, and
why someone would use it over and above whatever Microsoft ship's with IE
already?

That suggests that you may currently be relying on MS's implementation of Java
for your applets. If so then the relationship between Java and JavaScript may
be closer than you'll find it easy to achieve otherwise[*]. I don't know for
sure if that's true -- this is just a warning to check your design (discussed
in other threads here) to see if it's still practical when using a real
JVM/plug-in.

-- chris

[*] If my distant memory is correct, the MS JVM exposes all Java classes as COM
objects, and their JavaScript implementation can call COM directly. Neither
are true in other environments.

 

[Chris Uppal]

I'm calling my Applet like this 'var chan =
document.getElementById("myApplet")' and inside my class definition that
extends applet I have a variable "pipe" that is an instance of the
Tier3Socket class and I want JavaScript to be able to invoke methods in
"pipe" and I am getting a null pointer error if I try and say "byte_count
= chan.pipe.readMessage(2)".

a) Can I only call public methods at the Applet Class level from JS? (No
big deal)
b) If I say "var getClass = chan.pipe" can I then invoke getClass.xxx()
methods?
c) Is it just that I haven't said "public" when I declared "Tier3Socket
pipe;"

I don't really know, I'm afraid. If the Live Connect guide I'm looking at is
at all relevant (I don't know for sure that you are usng Live Connect, or even
if LC still exists !), then the answer to (b) /should/ be "yes". Other than
that, I'm guessing, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the answer to all
three questions was "yes" -- but that's only because that's how I'd have
designed it, not because I know how the JS integration actually works.

(BTW (c) confused me a little, I'm assuming that you have just choosen
"getClass" as the arbitrary name for a variable, you're not attempting to call
the pipe object's getClass() method.)

It might sound silly, but is there any chance that your applet's "pipe" field
actually /is/ null ? It's worth adding some tracing or something just to
double check...

(What is the default anyway?)

The default for classes, fields, and methods is so-called "package private",
which means that the class, field, or method isn't supposed to be visible from
outside its own package -- JS doesn't /have/ to honour that (it could just
ignore it, since Java protections don't apply if you are using JNI), but I'd
guess that the designers would attempt to mimic Java semantics as far as they
could and so they won't expose non-public members.

Everything I'm looking at (control panel, console etc) says "Sun
Microsystems Inc. Java HotSpot Client VM 1.6.0-b105"; short of running
Microsofts MSJVM remover tool, I don't know what else to do.

Sounds good. If you want to double-check, there's a system property
("java.vendor") you can check from your applet code to see the maker of the JVM
you are actually running in (as opposed to the one that's installed and you
/hope/ you are running in ;-). There's an example here:
http://www.javaworld.com/javatips/jw-javatip53.html


One other thing. I have just found this on the Web. It's clearly long out of
date, but it may still be relevant or even correct.
http://www.unix.org.ua/orelly/web/jscript/ch19_07.html
If it is then that may explain your problems too. (Easy way to check: run your
applet under FireFox and see what changes...)

-- chris