Slow download of large applet jars - please help!
We have a large applet (7 meg plus several meg more
in 3rd party libraries) which take too long to download
under slow connections (e.g. wireless VPNs). We cannot
depend on browser/java-plugin cache to speed things up
because users clear caches often. Our market will not consider
an "installed application" as an alternative. There is now a political
effort where I work to throw out lots of excellent Java technology
because of this.
Here is what I need:
* Break our code into several smaller jars and initially
download just one small applet jar that logs a user into
our service.
* Treat all the rest of the jars as portions of a "plug-in", which
is downloaded after that, as needed, and installed on the client
machine outside of browser/plugin cache.
* The main small applet code would "install the plugin" as needed
and call into these installed jar files to do all the rest of it's work
* The jars that are part of this "plug-in" would have their own smart
update mechanism so only the portions changed in a new release
need to be downloaded - implemented *apart* from the Java plugin
cache.
Yes, the plugin concept is largely user perception, but in our market
it is unavoidable. If the first small piece loads and runs quicker, then
the installation of a "plugin" after that may be more tolerable. And the
downloaded components won't get lost by clearing caches.
If anyone has ideas on how to do this, please help. Otherwise a lot
of really good Java technology will go down the drain for largely
political reasons. I need a good technical solution for this.
Thanks,
/Mark
