Its not clear if youa re asking as a develoerp or as a user.
I answered as a user. I love to find Web strated things, but for really big things the best solution is to start from a CD.
My ideal is a CD-based webstart install. There are a couple of kludges around to do this…
[quote]Yea… Winace and PowerArchiver does that. Pretty annyoing (and pretty stupid)
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Not stupid at all. It just registered itself as the tool for opening and extracting jar files; basic windows functionality and makes perfect sense. Whether it’s annoying or not; you can’t rely on the fact that a windows installation didn’t associate a .jar file with another program. So in my mind, there is no such thing as an ‘executable jar’.
[quote]My ideal is a CD-based webstart install. There are a couple of kludges around to do this…
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It would be the best thing for large games, but is there an easy, non-hackish way to do this?
[quote]Not stupid at all. It just registered itself as the tool for opening and extracting jar files; basic windows functionality and makes perfect sense. Whether it’s annoying or not; you can’t rely on the fact that a windows installation didn’t associate a .jar file with another program. So in my mind, there is no such thing as an ‘executable jar’.
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Well, even as a Java dev I’m most likely interested in running a jar instead of opening it. If I want zip functionality, I’ll use zip. However, there is also a correct way to do that integration thingy… the context menu. Plain and simple.
Just imagine there would be an XML editor wich just changes the association of jnlp files. Let’s see how many people would be interested in doing it that way? 0.005% of the population in 0.1% of the cases they doubleclick such a file… see? :
Doubleclickable jars must be stamped out! They are the spawn of Satan, and all his little wizards.
Cas
[quote]Doubleclickable jars must be stamped out! They are the spawn of Satan, and all his little wizards.
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You have to start a java app somehow. I don’t see the difference between starting a jar from the command line, using a launcher, a script and a doubleclickable jar.
Are you suggesting a jar should always be signed if you want it to access local resources and such?
I think if you are starting an downloaded application locally, it’s your own responsibility. Signing will just cause one more mouseclick between starting the jar and execution of your program; the user has chosen to download the jar anyway so he’s probably fine with the security risk anyway.
It’s a different story with applets and webstart because users don’t have the kind of control like they have when they download manually and start it.
[quote]Just imagine there would be an XML editor wich just changes the association of jnlp files.
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hmyes, you have a point. (or a hex editor associating with .exe 
prolly not possible but hey ;D)
No, it adds one more mouseclick between downloading an application and trusting it to run. Seeing as Webstart deployment is a one-click operation for a properly signed piece of code anyway, this is not an onerous burden.
We must also remember that security begins with trust, and that to place the end-user in the position of being entirely trusting whilst offering no collateral is not a good thing to do.
In a perfect world, operating systems would refuse to run unsigned EXEs too, but they haven’t implemented that. Yet.
Cas
But users don’t realise or care about permissions when they download stuff and run it. Time after time when I’m getting people to try out my webstart app they refuse - they get as far as the certificate warning (“It is highly recommended that you do not run this program”, gee, thanks Sun >:( ) that pops up because I don’t have a registered certificate, panic and close it. Yet they wouldn’t blink twice at running a random .exe which has just as many permissions.
Fortunately it’s not possible to change the assoziation of exe files (Wow! MS did something right :))
I thought about it for awhile now… but so far I didn’t came up with a absolutly great idea. Maybe something like auto-sandboxing on the first run? Or an easy way to run it in a sandbox?
-you run it
-“blabla tries to read […]config.cfg” allow? yes/no
-“blabla tries to write […]config.cfg” allow? yes/no
If you think it’s ok to turn sandboxing off… rightclick blabla.
Something along that lines. But how will that work with fullscreen? What if you load a native lib? (blabla wants total control of your system?!). I really don’t know… and what’s bout developing? It shouldn’t became a pain in the arse should it?
Nice idea, but it’ll be like jws’ ‘…it’s recommended you do not start this app…’-dialog popping up a 1000 times : It’ll warn the user allright, but it’ll scare him away from your hard work even more.
Actually I think the jws warning dialog is not so bad, even if it would pop up at every downloaded program that doesn’t have a trusted certificate, but OTOH if it will popup at every dl-ed non-commercial program you’re likely to become immune to them.
Alright, the poll seems to be little bit old, however here we go!
I personally think Webstart is the way to go, however, some people prefer to download and install games locally. It also depends on the game.
What to do? BOTH of course!
I created an Ant build script which allows me to either create an application (*.bat for Windows / *.sh for Linux)
or create a JNLP file with all the necessary jars etc.
There are some free libraries available that work with Ant that allow to create executables. Or you can create Applets. No big deal. Everything you want. Even create a version of your software using an Installer with Ant.
Let me know if you are interested and I will publish my Ant build file.
We’re very biased in here.
Almost nobody likes Webstart outside of this forum.
Cas
Any idea why that is?
Dan.
Because its unfamiliar - because it doesn’t look nor feel like a native app (which an executable jar is much closer to). Because most people who attempt to try things are too dumb to read instructions (example: I give clear instructions to “install Java 1.4 [link] and click this webstart link”, and people say “ok, I’ve downloaded your .jnlp, now what the hell do I do?”)…
Because some browsers to funny things with .jnlp files (like downloading or opening as text). Because people don’t like the webstart UI if they want to run offline (or worse, don’t actually know it exists and moan that they don’t want to find your ^*#$ link every time). Because security warnings are big and scary (even when they’re not). Because stupid “desktop intergration” causes annoying focus problems which look like the app has frozen.
Because, in short, it’s totally unfamiliar and so when anything goes wrong they’re totally unprepared and unexperienced to try and fix anything.
It’s a shame cos it can be pretty useful. It’s probably down to blahblahblahh’s campaigning but I’m reluctant to try something that is not webstart now, it’s just much hassle.
Where as with webstart its click, download, click yes(security), click no (desktop integration, wish it didn’t ask that every time) game starts.
Oh well…
Dan.
I prefer to launch games by turning on my TV followed by my console… :-/
One day PCs will be like that…
Cas
[quote]One day PCs will be like that…
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Technically, that should be “once upon a time they were like that…” Back in the day, you had no hard driver, so you put your program disk in and turned it on. Sometimes that program disk was a game.
Today’s PCs could accomplish a “put-the-CD-in-the-drive-and-boot” procedure, but the problem is that most users don’t want to exit their OS and shell. So we’re left with the matter of cooperating with the shell on installing and launching programs. In exchange, the OS provides us with sets of services that might not be available in a “all-on-the-CD” approach. (e.g. filesystem, ability to patch the game, driver updates, scheduling, etc.)
Now what I do see in the future is that computers will change their roles. Instead of purchasing a workstation where everything runs directly, the user will purchase a small multimedia server. This multimedia server will hook into your stereo and TV via wireless connections to shunt music and video from the internet to your home entertainment station. Wireless laptops that get their programs and data from the server can be purchased for those desktop apps you need.
Game consoles will be revolutionized. Instead of purchasing carts for your console, then fiddling with add-on hardware to attempt to get an experience close to what computers provide, your game console will instead connect to your home server and allow you to purchase, download, and run games off the internet. Save game storage and internet connectivity would be provided to the console directly by your home server. Optionally, games may come on CDs that are put into your home server instead of the game console. This would have the effect of making the console cheaper, yet more feature rich at the same time. More data could even be packed into games since it can always be cached on the server and downloaded to the console on demand.
That’s my dream anyway.
Webstart, why would you want to use anything else, it handles auto updates and installing of correct JVMs. It rocks!
Andy.
Auto-updates : bad if customer doesn’t want it. And the customer has no control over it!!! Unbelievable!
Cas