There’s a discussion going on at http://weblogs.java.net/pub/wlg/1438 of interest to game developers who want to ship a stripped down JRE with their game. As Cas has already done this maybe he could contribute?
20thCB
hm, from my point of view, the JRE is too small… Java3D and JAXB e.g. should be delivered with the basic install …
… OR there should be an automatic extension mechanism to switch on features in the application that are automatically d’loaded, installed and kept current then…
…it’s called Webstart, and if only Webstart was a native front-end it could download the AWT and Swing as necessary. It is the perfect solution albeit one fraught with hassles.
I’ll chip in on the discussion.
Cas 
well, WebStart is not right there where it should be …
If a single line in JNLP file pointing somewhere to a Sun server would be sufficient to install Java3D for all times, that would be a solution.
Currently I have to provide signed Java3D files on my server, and I think they cannot even make it to the jre/lib/ext (?) …
…and that’s how we want it. Last thing I want is you upgrading my game for me with some extension that’s broken. See?
Cas
[quote]well, WebStart is not right there where it should be …
If a single line in JNLP file pointing somewhere to a Sun server would be sufficient to install Java3D for all times, that would be a solution.
[/quote]
Have you tried talking to Sun about getting this in place?
me? me? I’m a small, useless, harmless, ignorable individual doing some game coding at home … they won’t listen to me and make my dreams come true…
And I’m noisy, high-profile, irritating, pesky and influential, and they don’t listen to me either. But then again I disagree with installing shared libraries without an adequate versioning methodology (such as can be found in .net, which is quite bloody nifty)
Cas
[quote]And I’m noisy, high-profile, irritating, pesky and influential, and they don’t listen to me either.
[/quote]
Sorry. Who are you…? ;D
[quote]me? me? I’m a small, useless, harmless, ignorable individual doing some game coding at home … they won’t listen to me and make my dreams come true…
[/quote]
Well, put it this way: if you don’t even ask how do you expect to receive?
I thought I’d offered to help you get going whatever was necessary for this - I’ve given Kev a list of problems that people encountered after following his webstart tutorial, and have been pushing him to answer them in a second article on the topic - including some “conventional” JNLP lines for various standard libs like J3D.
Since I have no J3D apps, I can’t test anything myself, so I went to you for help there. If we can setup a j3d as an “external library” for webstart on JGF, and this is all that’s needed for more J3D games to be added to JGF (like the tankwar game guy who gave up because he got too confused trying to setup webstart), then for (deity’s sake) let’s do it! If we get to the point where all we want from Sun is to host a single file, and we’ve proved people are using it then it’s really really easy for them to do that.
I doubt Sun are going to say “no” to “can you just sign and host this one file that X people are already downloading a day, and which actually belongs to you anyway?”
[quote]But then again I disagree with installing shared libraries without an adequate versioning methodology (such as can be found in .net, which is quite bloody nifty)
[/quote]
Sometimes - like today - I feel like crying when I look at the monumentally FUBAR’d mongolian clusterfuck that is Sun’s packaging and versioning system for java apps. It still looks like something a 16 yr-old intern cooked up at 2am when he wanted to get home early. The only good things I’ve ever found to say about it are:
- it uses ZIP for compression (makes it easy to inspect and repair JAR’s, even if you don’t have java)
- they added the “java -jar” command and the “Main-Class” attribute so that you could double-click a jar to launch it
- the “ext” directory is a small-but-helpful improvement on what went before
…and that’s not saying much, is it? 
But…if that’s all we’ve got to work with, we have to.