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When you install the SDK, the installer will also include a plug-in for the most common types of browsers that it locates on your system. With this plug-in you can run all the applet demonstration programs in this course.

Note: A plug-in is a third-party program that runs within the browser environment. Common plug-in's include Apple's Quicktime(TM) video viewer and Macromedia's Shockwave(TM) animator. After a plug-in is downloaded and installed the first time, the plug-in will thereafter run from the local disk and so will not cause further delays.

However, what about other web users who want to run the applets that you develop with the latest version of Java? You could ask them also to install the JVM or JRE but that is a big demand just to run an applet.

Note: The simplest technique is just to tell the visitors to your applet page to go to www.java.com and click on the "Get It Now" button to obtain the plug-in.

An earlier option was to set up the applet tags so that the browser downloads the JVM plug-in from Sun rather than using the default JVM.

The tag modifications for the plug-in involves some messy HTML code. For example, the hypertext code for an applet might look like:

The hypertext code to run this with the plug-in for both MS Internet Explorer and Netscape becomes

This code is rather obscure but you don't have to understand it since there is a tool to create this code for you.

You simply create your web pages with normal applet tags and then run the HTML Converter on these pages to produce new pages with the tags modified as above. The Converter currently can set up the plug-in code for Internet Explorer and the Netscape browsers on Windows and Solaris platforms.

The HTML Converter comes with the installation of the SDK. It is located in the lib directory as in C:\sdk1.4.1\lib\ if you installed the SDK in C:\sdk1.4.1. The program in packed in a JAR file and you can run it from its directory (or put that directory in your PATH environmental variable) as follows:

C:\sdk1.4.1\lib> java -jar htmlconverter.jar -gui

See the HTML Converter description in the Java Developers Plug-in Guide for further instructions on running this utility.

References & Resources

• Java Deployment
• www.java.com - download plug-in
• Java Plug-in Technology - Sun
• Java Plug-in 5.0 Developer Guide Contents - Sun
• Java Upgrade Guide: Migrating From the Microsoft VM for Java to the Sun JRE
• Using the HTML Converter to Convert Applet Tags for Java Plug-in - Sun Java Developers Guide
• More About HTML Converter - Sun Java Developers Guide

Most recent update: Oct.22.2004

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