What JVMs on which OS's ?

[Thomas Weidenfeller]

Except for card-layout to
build Tabbed pages, I always use my own layout and sizes,
just as a Windows application which it more closely resembles.

Which simply means that your applet will most likely not work on
non-Windows systems. Why do you go through all the trouble with an
Applet and all the issues with different VMs, when you just build it for
Windows? That's a waste of time.

If you need a real programming language for implementing your program,
consider a Java application, deployed via web start. If you don't need a
programming language, do it in HTML.

For all practical purposes, applets are on their deathbed or even dead.
It sounded like a great idea a decade ago, but it just didn't work out.

Yes, you can still occasionally find applets on web pages. But may I
suggest that you go to http://java.sun.com and look for applets? Even
the technology owner no longer uses them to run the site. And they don't
use them for something like five years. Yes, there are some on the site,
but you really have to look hard, or to know where to find them. And
they are not used for enhancing the site, but for demonstrating some
Java things. Noting serious is done with applets.

Well written anything is better, and most stuff is not
well written nor well designed including Windows aps. Good
GUIs seem to be an art in itself.

Yep, and that's why avoiding layout managers in Java is a very bad idea.
You spend all the time to optimize for one VM (yes, one VM, not just one
OS, one VM. VMs differ in component and font sizes), and then the whole
stuff looks bad if you change the VM and/or OS.

/Thomas

 

[Andrew Thompson]

Yes, you can still occasionally find applets on web pages. But may I
suggest that you go to http://java.sun.com and look for applets?

Yeah. I have gone on that hunt several times..

..Even the technology owner no longer uses them to run the site.

Do you mean for navigation and such? I have *never* seen
Sun use an applet for anything that was core to the web
page itself. Only (mainly) examples, and some cute
applets* over at the user site at www.java.com.

* though damn annoying till you find that little
'Audio' ..green thing. To shut it the heck up.

...And they don't
use them for something like five years. Yes, there are some on the site,
but you really have to look hard, or to know where to find them. And
they are not used for enhancing the site, but for demonstrating some
Java things. Noting serious is done with applets.

I largely agree. By the time you get to serious
applications, you start using JWS. Once you get to
JWS ..well you can *use* JWS for your applet, but
you may just as well make it a full application and
lose the silly little 'this is a browser' border
that JWS puts around JWS'd applets.

I have written, and deployed, any number of applets,
but most of those are to try and accomodate other
applets (with simple versioning, monitoring etc.)
and ameliorate the negative effects of those applets
on web pages/the end user.

And ..perhaps a comment on how much Sun is dedicated
to the concept of applets, I note that Sun.
- has abandoned use of it's own HTMLConverter in favor
of the HTML 3.2 <APPLET> alement.
- The applet element was 'deprecated' along with HTML 3.2
in around 1998/1997(?).
- Sun appears to be making no move to have the APPLET
element introduced to HTML 4.0 (or any later versions)
nor to either standardise the use of <OBJECT>/<EMBED>
nested element, or get (freakin') Mozilla to finally
give up on the <EMBED> element and join the rest of
the world (and the W3C) in it's support of the <OBJECT>
element.

The situation with Sun and applets is what gives
me most cause for concern. It seems they are still
willing to use applets in their sites occasionally,
but they really find them a little embarrassing.

They should be very embarrassed, and either work
to fixing the many problems with applets, or perhaps
at least admit they are abandoning them completely.

 

[Andrew Thompson]

The situation with Sun and applets is what gives
me most cause for concern. It seems they are still
willing to use

no..'display' is a better word

..applets in their sites occasionally,
but they really find them a little embarrassing.

...

 

[Thomas Weidenfeller]

Do you mean for navigation and such? I have *never* seen
Sun use an applet for anything that was core to the web
page itself.

Young grasshopper I still do remember the times when already the
front page of http://java.sun.com took aged to load, because they had a
bunch of more or less useful applets on them.

/Thomas