I'm putting some java applets on an arts website, and it would be nice to avoid having the java logo appearing while the JVM is starting up and the applet is loading ( no offense Sun, love the technology :) ), preferably i'd like just to see blank space or a jpg file of my choice, is there a way to do this?
> ok, so it's a JVM plug-in issue, that makes sense,
> since the different plug-ins display different
> pictures when they are loading.. i've never seen an
> applet that showed an alternate image, but it would
> be so simple for java to code into their plug-in they
> must have done it...
Why should they? It's maybe not that simple after all, as IIRC it has a status bar and thus is rather a live-painted animation instead of a static image.
> Why should they?
well because although new technology is a wonderful thing, it is better hidden from the end user, people looking at an art website don't need to know that java made the plug in, they want to see art... anybody that wants to know the technology can do a right click and look at the properties tab,
>It's maybe not that simple after all, as IIRC it has a status bar and thus
> is rather a live-painted animation instead of a static image.
IIRC? help, you lost me there... you mean the clever animation that came with the latest plugin, well the previous version just had a static image didn't it... btw, thanks for the help :)
ok, in a way i agree with you, but i ask you this, when i started reading about java applets a few months ago, and java in general, i thought it was an amazing technology for putting active content on web pages, and of course it is. But if you look at all the active content on most pages on the www it is all macromedia flash player. this is because flash simply looks way better when it loads onto a page. you dont see a big logo announcing who wrote the program.. i want java to be as cool as flash when it loads on my web pages, because i believe java is a better technology, though i have to say i don't know much about how flash really works.
I found something on the sun site about java network loading protocol that hints at a solution, but it looks way complicated...
The JNLP Client can download 3 different kind of resources: JAR files, images, and JNLP files. All
resources in a JNLP file are uniquely named using either a URL or a URL/version-id pair. A typical
application deployed using JNLP will consist of a set of JAR files and a set of images3.
3 The image files described in the JNLP file are icons that can be used by the JNLP Client to integrate
the application into the desktop environment. They are not for use by the application itself. All
application resources, such as images, must generally either be included in one of the JAR files or be
explicitly downloaded using, e.g, an HTTP request.
> ok, in a way i agree with you, but i ask you this,
> when i started reading about java applets a few
> months ago, and java in general, i thought it was an
> amazing technology for putting active content on web
> pages, and of course it is. But if you look at all
> the active content on most pages on the www it is all
> macromedia flash player. this is because flash simply
> looks way better when it loads onto a page.
> you dont see a big logo announcing who wrote the
> program.. i want java to be as cool as flash when it
> loads on my web pages, because i believe java is a
> better technology, though i have to say i don't know
> much about how flash really works.
Do you want to know my opinion? I think both applets and flash suck 95% of the time, and I try to avoit sites using either if I have the choice. Applets, though sometimes used even professionally, probably originally were just a thing to demonstrate Java's cross-platform abilities. But it's not what Java's all about.
And while I never used any Flash, I have yet to hear that it qualifies as a full-featured programming platform.
> Read the Java Plug-in Developers manual for the Java
> version you use, if anything is possible it will have
> the information.
The problem: everyone in the world will have to install his version of the JRE for it to work. It's a client-side code that's run before his applet comes into play..
oh yes thanks, it was webstart,...
however it does look like webstart has two nice features, incremental loading and the ability to display an image while loading, and the sun docs say this technology was borrowed from applets, theres hope yet :) here's what it says for the webstart stuff..
A sample JNLP file, which is an XML document, is shown here:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<jnlp codebase="http://www.mysite.com/app">
<information>
<title>Draw!</title>
<vendor>My Web Company</vendor>
<icon href="draw-icon.jpg"/>
<offline-allowed/>
</information>
<resources>
<j2se version="1.3+"/>
<jar href="draw.jar"/>
</resources>
<application-desc main-class="com.mysite.Draw"/>
</jnlp>
The JNLP file describes how to launch the sample application, titled Draw!. In the JNLP file, it is
specified that the Java 2 platform, version 1.3 or higher is required to run this application, along with
some general application information that can be displayed to the user during the download phase.
...Many of the technologies that
are used by JNLP are borrowed from the Applet technology, such as the downloading of code and the
secure sandbox.
Believe me, I'm familiar with Webstart. I even used the "loading image" before. Just a magnified icon in a dialog window with a status bar, that shows the progress of the download. It's close to how you want your applet start-up to look like, but it's a separate window on the desktop.
1) You can not embed Webstart into a webpage other than as a trigger link.
2) What they took from applets is the downloading and JAR caching, and the security context (sandbox, signed JARs and the likes).
agreed, :)
i took a look at the plug-in developer guide
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/guide/plugin/developer_guide/special_attributes.html
and there is hope, here is what it says ( btw, anyone have the www for the latest version of sun JVM?)
There are six special attributes that can be used for customizing the applet window during downloading of an applet. (Note: The same applies to a JavaBeans component.) This section discusses:
The default appearance of the applet window (no special attributes specified)
The six special attributes
image
progressbar
boxmessage
boxbgcolor
boxfgcolor
progresscolor
The order of attribute precedence
The failure scenario, i.e., what happens when an applet does not download or run cleanly
Default Appearance
When none of these tags are used, the default appearance of the applet window is as follows:
The coffee cup logo is placed in the upper left corner. Its dimensions are 24x24 pixels and it is located 6 pixels from the top and left sides of the applet window. If the entire size of the applet is less than 36x36 pixels, then it will not be displayed. The status bar of the browser will display "Loading Java Applet ..." when the mouse points at the applet window.
yup, thank 4 that
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/plugin/developer_guide/special_attributes.html#default
and thanks for the discussion, never would have got there otherwise in less than a month :) now i have a very cool looking page for my arts friends, and i can insulate them from knowing that they are using computer programs, :P,
thread closed.
