I have a question.  I'm not much of a Java person (or barely at all actually
though I'm learning) but I am somewhat in charge of a Java project so I'm
trying to get my head around a lot of this.

We have an application which is word processor-like which we are
building.Our initial plan was to do it so that it could be run both as an
applet and as an end-user application so people could edit their documents
over the web
(from within their browser).

However someone pointed out to me that there are so many restrictions with
applets that the application could not be built so that it would both work
and function well.  I'm not too concerned with the idea that the applet can
only talk to the server from which it was downloaded, that is fine.  Are
there any other restrictions I ought to know about?  I didn't get much from
the person who was telling me all this other than it was a "bad idea."

Also, would there be a significant development time difference developing an
application so that it can be run as an applet and as an application v.s. as
an application only?

Finally, one of the reasons why we are developing this application is to
showcase some new text editing and layout technology which we have
developed.  On the surface, it looks like a standard text editor control
however, it is capable of advanced layout and would be suitable for building
a full fledged word processor (comparable to Word, WordPerfect, or
FrameMaker) or page layout software (such as QuarkXPress).  Do you think
there would be much market for this within the Java community? (We developed
it first in Java because we felt that we could complete it faster and thus
bring it to market sooner and it is what our primary developer -- a former
developer of WordPerfect's core -- preferred.)  Any pointers here would also
be appreciated.

Thanks,

-Art