Depends.
If the app is small and requires no native code (e.g. a JOGL canvas can have nasty positioning bugs as applet):
Otherwise screenshot with “Start in Browser” and “Download and Start in separate Window” buttons. On newer JDKs/Java Plugin2 make the click on the screenshot behave like the “Start in browser” button.
to avoid misunderstood of the initial pool
consider that the original question assume that both solution work well and that you are a end user (not a developer).
[quote=“princec,post:17,topic:33123”]
That.
Is.
Awesome.
If there were no technical problems, I’d much prefer applets for everything. For FPS type games, pressing a button (or pressing alt+enter) to fullscreen mode would be awesome.
Definately applets
seems that you can do that with any applet (at least I am able to switch to fullscreen with 3DzzD in either Software or Hardware mode) Java 1.6-03
use F5 to toggle fullscreen on/off
http://demo.dzzd.net/HelloWorld/HelloWorld.htm
here is code to put in the Applet to switch full screen
moved to : http://www.java-gaming.org/index.php/topic,20058.0.html
doesn’t work for me… I get a big window, but it doesn’t cover the entire screen. It’s like it’s been offset to the screen coordinates of the original applet.
Having add/remove programs flooded with java webstart stuff is a bit annoying.
[quote]Having add/remove programs flooded with java webstart stuff is a bit annoying.
[/quote]
Yes it is. Also you can’t remove them if the Java cache is cleared.
Also seems webstart shortcut is unreliable. Each update to the jnlp file and the shortcut seems to break. Usually can be repaired by reinstalling the shortcut. But many users have no idea how to do that.
That is such a nice game, ended up playing it all day yesterday.
On topic: Applets, definately.
Although: applets are great, in that you get instant accessibility.
But…
if only Webstart were as good at installing software as, say, NSIS is on Windows. In other words, a proper, proper application deployment thing.
Cas 
technically you could have an applet based installer that fully installs the application from within the browser, start menu and desktop icons, would that not be better than downloading an exe installer and then running it?
From a purely technical point of view not really much difference, you’ve still had to give away full control of your system to an applet.
From an end user point of view, who is most likely used to the multitude of installers they run on their system in the past, certainly not. People trust what they’re used to, whether it’s more secure or not.
Sorta a pointless question in that case though - in the perfect world, where applets don’t have any issues nor does webstart. So both solutions are absolutely perfect and I don’t care which I get
Kev
I think that Webstart look like download & execute of exe file, I cannot see its interrest
[quote]Sorta a pointless question in that case though - in the perfect world, where applets don’t have any issues nor does webstart. So both solutions are absolutely perfect and I don’t care which I get
[/quote]
not really pointless, my side I care, Webstart look for me the same as when I click an exe file then execute
[quote]Sorta a pointless question in that case though - in the perfect world, where applets don’t have any issues nor does webstart. So both solutions are absolutely perfect and I don’t care which I get
[/quote]
But both have slightly different use cases. I guess the question is about the usability from a user’s pov, will they prefer applets or webstart?
Considering that 99% of the users will get to your game’s website using a browser, you might as well start/install directly from the browser. In which case there is not much use for webstart, unless Java Web Start’s functionality is exactly how you want it to work, which I think is not the case for most of us, even if it would be bug-free.
So in a perfect world I’d favour Applets.
But in the current imperfect world, don’t applets have quite severe memory restrictions on many systems? Maybe not on newer Sun plugins, but what about Mac?
Restricted heap size was one of the reasons I just couldn’t use applets and had to use web start.
Yes, exactly my point, in a perfect world each of them would fufil their use cases perfectly. So when I was in one use case - casual web based stuff, applets would be perfect. When I was wanted something outside of the browser and desktop integrated then webstart would be perfect.
Again, it depends on the game. 99% of users don’t get their AAA PC games from the web even now.
I agree, for the stuff the majority of people round here write right now Applets are an ideal end user experience (if plugin1 wasn’t so flawed). For other larger games the average end user isn’t expecting or wanting something tied into their browser - though hopefully with advent of things like Quake Live and Instant Action this is changing. We’ll have to see how successful they are in the long run to really gauge how user’s will perceive this stuff.
I have feeling the the op has a vested interest in applets being more accepted by the end user than webstart, so it might be a slightly tainted question.
Kev