Running webstarts on Mac OS X

Newbie & Debugging Questions
#1

I’ve got Mac OS X 10.4.9 on a separate partition on my computer, and I thought I’d use it to troubleshoot my webstart, basically to see if it works on mac at all.

When I try to execute a webstart, the Java webstart app starts (can see it flicker for 0.2 secs as the active program) and then quits immediately leaving no error msg whatsoever.
I noticed this was the case on ALL webstarts.

I thought; maybe I should upgrade Java first. And it turns out it’s “built in” into the OS, so no luck there.

How does Java work on mac? I see the latest downloadable Java-related item on apple’s support site requires OS X 10.5.x. Does that mean that any mac user that wants to keep up with the latest Java release, has to get the latest OS as well?

#2

exactly, currently you will even need latest hardware because Apple’s java 6 is only available as 64 bit version.

#3

But isn’t that retarded?

So any non 64bit mac user is left out anything Java 6?

#4

decide for yourself.

currently yes (apple does not talk about future)

#5

Well here’s the decision:

Yes

#6

Yes, but … you do realise that all CPU’s available to purchase are 64bit these days? Many (most?) mac’s bought within the last few years should be fine.

#7

A good point.

What about the OS’s in general then? Don’t you have to pay to go from say 10.4 to 10.5?

#8

You should be able to get Java 1.5 for Mac OS X 10.4. Try running software update.

I rarely have problems with webstarts… I have a 64-bit Intel mac running OS X 10.5, but I never had problems on my old computer either.

#9

You can set Eclipse to compile to Java5 compliant code but then you lose any Java6 or newer features.

In Europa this option is under project->properties->Java Compiler. Similar options probably exist in other IDEs.