Applet Reliability: Test with me! (MSIE 7.0 please)

[Riven]

@Mr_Light

For IE isn’t there the object tag (I thought I saw somewhere else that you had very little firefox ppl) which starts a wizzard, which installs it quite easily. Well these days it’s probably a bar at the top saying “this website requires java for some of it’s content click here to install”.

Sure, the object-tag is much better when the plugin needs to be installed (nice yellow bar), whereas the applet-tag takes you to some obscure page with ultimate MicroSoft confusion trying to make you change MSIE settings to ‘enable’ Java.

Anyway, the object tag has(<u10) / had(u10+) exactly the same problems as the applet tag.
So for keeping the testcase simple, I decided to go with the applet tag, as that should work in every browser.

[Riven]

@brackeen

It sounds like you can alleviate the problem by using smaller jars. So in your distribution step, combine all your jars into one and use ProGuard on it. Also, one applet per page seems to be better, but I’m not sure if your app requires multiple applets in a page.

The commercial applet is rather big. Mostly due to resources (images - 700KB) but also roughly 800KB in class files alone.
Shrinking it (removing all unused classes) is a lot of work, because I’m using reflection, and static optimizers remove way too much classes.

I might have to put that effort into it some day, though, if it really helps.
Further, I have only 1 applet on my page (not even dynamically embedded), but that hangs / hanged often enough!

[brackeen]

@Riven

Shrinking it (removing all unused classes) is a lot of work, because I’m using reflection, and static optimizers remove way too much classes.

Ah yeah, reflection is ProGuard’s kryptonite.

[Mr_Light]

@Riven

So for keeping the testcase simple, I decided to go with the applet tag, as that should work in every browser.

http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/guides/plugin/developer_guide/using_tags.html - show ways to get the best of both worlds.

Not sure if it would pass strict validation though. :

[hishadow]

[quote=“Riven,post:42,topic:32547”]
Update 10 have the separate_jvm parameter. Maybe that could help (with refreshes too). link

Concerning your users: inform them that your program is much more stable with update 10 and include some instructional text on how to install the update. Needless to say, the java updater is a horrible openoffice pushing bastard. They got alot to learn from how Adobe have handle Flash, though I suspect Adobe will start pushing AIR more agressivly too (as in Adobe Reader).

[DzzD]

[quote]Quote from: Riven on November 20, 2008, 09:51:09 AM
So for keeping the testcase simple, I decided to go with the applet tag, as that should work in every browser.

http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/guides/plugin/developer_guide/using_tags.html - show ways to get the best of both worlds.

Not sure if it would pass strict validation though.
[/quote]
IMHO, Applet tag is the most compatbile… and it’s better to have something that works on IE/FF than something that pass vaidation… I really dont care about validation and found that … burk… but that’s a personal opinion

[Riven]

I’m not a laywer, read the license