Well, like I said, the applet itself is very straightforward; just an applet tag with, well, an applet in it…
Maybe that explains why it seems to just work.
Bringing this back (for a moment) to the original blog post, there’s more on the technical details of the transition from Java to Flash: http://blog.sharendipity.com/moving-to-flash-part-4 (has links to the other parts, too)
Unfortunately the J2AS3 utility (which attempts to automatically port code) doesn’t actually seem to be available - the download links are all broken. So I couldn’t see how well it works. If it’s anything like other automatic porting tools I’ve seen, it doesn’t do much more than a literal source-level translation, which means there’s a lot of patching up that needs to happen after the fact (for any sort of advanced syntax tricks as well as for any and all library calls). I’m not sure, though, it’s possible I’m underestimating the utility - the fact that the website is down probably doesn’t bode well for the utility receiving much development love, though!
I once implemented a similar logging system at my gamesportal. From the stats I gathered ~ 75-80% of the users could play without the jvm bugging them. But this higher success rate could be explained because all the applets are jre 1.1 compatible. The userbase consist mainly from casualgamers, so should be pretty representative. I also received little complaint about games not working, while the logs tell something different, I guess people just dont bother (and probably leave forever 
)
It hurts to say this, but if I where to develop online casual games again, I’d probably go with flash… Luckily Bruno and I have some cool game prototypes cooking to demonstrate the (potential) power of java applet games
EDIT: 75-80% of the people having a JVM installed that is… I didnt log the people without a JVM
Well, even literal conversion is difficult. There are some key differences in AS3, such as having no abstract classes, private constructors, or multiple threads. The language itself is quite nice IMO, but it’s too different from Java to justify a straight and painless conversion.
This is a very important topic.
I have had the same experience.
My sister just got a new laptop, and she’s using it for her school. So she’s trying to use this school web system to submit her assignments, but it doesn’t work! My sister calls me and needs my help, so I drive to her place and try to fix it. Guess what, the school web system uses some Java Applets that enable users to upload files.
My sister is not very computer savvy, what she failed in doing was approving all those kazillions of dialogs about security and trust that popped up to allow her to run that Java Applet. She had just closed them before or minimized, not knowing what they were for.
Even I was startled at learning how complex this was. It was on Windows Vista, and the whole screen is dimmed down and this dialog appears like a virus is trying to take over your system. Scary, complex and time-consuming.
[quote]My sister is not very computer savvy, what she failed in doing was approving all those kazillions of dialogs about security and trust that popped up to allow her to run that Java Applet. She had just closed them before or minimized, not knowing what they were for.
Even I was startled at learning how complex this was. It was on Windows Vista, and the whole screen is dimmed down and this dialog appears like a virus is trying to take over your system. Scary, complex and time-consuming.
[/quote]
Yeah, maybe we should just get rid of the sandbox and let any applet do whatever it wants, like scanning your drives for creditcard numbers or turning on your webcam and publishing it on the internet. That should get rid of that nasty security dialog just fine. 
Seriously though, there’s something wrong about designing a website with a kazillion security-dialog-popping-up applets. IMHO that’s not really the fault of applets or security dialogs, it’s the fault of whoever designed the website to work like that.
Vista! but at least it supports directX10
Java already has its own security certificate prompt, it sux that the internet browser also gets in the applets way.
I have a feeling that Java’s security is rather poorly implemented from a user’s perspective these days. To be perfectly honest I think the security should come solely from the OS and browser these days, presenting the user with a consistent approach to security on their platform of choice. Java’s built-in security should only be called upon for standalone Java applications that wish to download remote code and put up a cross-platform security dialog, eg. a Java browser.
Cas 
I think what your saying would come across as alot cleaner. But I think with things like JNLP it would be annoying to try get the end user to allow restricted access to ports and such for online gaming (by going through the OS just for java gaming, the disabling after use) . I think thats really the one reason I really like the current certificate setup in Java.
I think better OS support (particularly in presending dialogs to the user) would go a long way. What with each different browser, anti-virus, firewall, webstart etc. presenting an entirely different security dialog to the user it’s not surprising that users get confused.