LWJGL Applets

[Jon]

I've noticed that recently a few users around here have been working on ways in which LWJGL applets can be elegantly loaded in pages, in which a placeholder image is clicked (so as to not slow down loading of the page).

Even with this approach, there are a few caveats and questions I have about this.

1) Signed applets show the annoying certification message.
2) What happens to users without Java? Is there a way to elegantly get Java installed without routing them to Sun's site?
3) Through JavaScript, I can poll for the user's exact version of Java, right? I effectively want to enforce a specific version and above.
4) Pressing back and forward seems to mess badly with Applets in general. I got FF to crash by doing exactly that.
5) I've seen several examples of deferred loading of LWJGL applets. Who's got the best solution so far for my needs?

- Jon

[Matzon]

1) Signed applets show the annoying certification message.

No way around this. Minimum case, the user accepts your certificate that others sign with or you load their gamesi n your classloader

2) What happens to users without Java? Is there a way to elegantly get Java installed without routing them to Sun's site?

if you use the object syntax instead of applet, it will let the browser download the plugin automatically

3) Through JavaScript, I can poll for the user's exact version of Java, right? I effectively want to enforce a specific version and above.

No, not entirely - but mostly (has IE is a bit messy in this regard)

4) Pressing back and forward seems to mess badly with Applets in general. I got FF to crash by doing exactly that.

Firefox / Sun Plugin issue - applet support is a bit buggy - but subjectively 1.6.0_05 seems better (early access)

5) I've seen several examples of deferred loading of LWJGL applets. Who's got the best solution so far for my needs?

none of the examples I've seen were actually defered loading - it was just a placeholder image?
anyhow, just place the applet in a div, set it's position to left: -1000px then slide it in when ready (you can't hide it, because then IE won't load it).

[Jon]

if you use the object syntax instead of applet, it will let the browser download the plugin automatically

Do I have control over what version this is, or can I assume that it's the latest version? When I get around to this, I'll definitely want the Consumer JRE to be the choice.

- Jon

[kappa]

Do I have control over what version this is, or can I assume that it's the latest version? When I get around to this, I'll definitely want the Consumer JRE to be the choice.

- Jon

yes you can, even if the user has an older version of java you can make it so it tries to update to the version you want, more info on how it works here http://ww2.cs.fsu.edu/~steele/XHTML/appletObject.html