The oldest JRE version from those "popular"

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apa-sf - 25 Aug 2006 19:24 GMT

I was wondering - does anybody know what is the odlest JRE version from
those "popular" that still can be found on users computers? SUN 1.4.x?
Something else?

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Andrew Thompson - 25 Aug 2006 19:39 GMT

> I was wondering - does anybody know what is the odlest JRE version from
> those "popular" that still can be found on users computers? SUN 1.4.x?
> Something else?

Why do you ask?* You are not about to make the mistake
of coding 'down to' a particular VM in the hope of covering
'everybody' are you?

It is a better strategy to choose the Java version required
to do the task, then ensure the end user has
a) enough interest to bother
b) enough help (from the deployer) to ensure that the
correct Java version is made available to the application
or applet.

* No, I have no idea. ..I think it's a moot question, though.

Andrew T.

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apa-sf - 25 Aug 2006 20:34 GMT

> Why do you ask?* You are not about to make the mistake
> of coding 'down to' a particular VM in the hope of covering
> 'everybody' are you?

To be honest - as our applet is almost ready I was thinking about
trying to recode it slighty 'down to' and I was wondering what bottom
point would be reasonable.

> It is a better strategy to choose the Java version required
> to do the task, then ensure the end user has
> a) enough interest to bother
> b) enough help (from the deployer) to ensure that the
> correct Java version is made available to the application
> or applet.

You are right with that but for a common person downloading some JRE
and installing it as another application on the computer might be "to
much".
At this point I am jealous about the flash and how it is handled by
browsers ;)

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Andrew Thompson - 25 Aug 2006 21:05 GMT

> > Why do you ask?* You are not about to make the mistake
> > of coding 'down to' a particular VM in the hope of covering
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> trying to recode it slighty 'down to' and I was wondering what bottom
> point would be reasonable.

I would not know which was popular or what was
reasonable even if I was confident that I understood
what you meant by those words. I'm not (confident).

> > It is a better strategy to choose the Java version required
> > to do the task, then ensure the end user has
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> and installing it as another application on the computer might be "to
> much".

Who said anything about that? All the user has
to see is a couple of dialogs, and hit 'yes' at the
right moment(s). It takes some clever HTML and
helper applets on the deployer side, but the
end user can have a quite fast and simple
installation experience.

> At this point I am jealous about the flash and how it is handled by
> browsers ;)

(shrugs) How is that?

For comparison, modern Java (once it hits 1.5, I think)
has become automatically 'self updating', unless the
behaviour is overriden by the end user. When updating,
only the updated components are downloaded, making
an update very quick. Applications and applets can be
wrapped in JWS, to ensure they have any Java version
from a minimum n.n+, all the way to specifying a specific
minor version (as well as offering desktop shortcuts,
menu items, and automatic updates, to boot).

What does the Flash/browser combo. offer that's missing
from the combined strategy of the modern auto-updating
VM's and webstart deployment?

( & BTW - you could always use the nested <OBJECT>/<EMBED>
elements to do applet versioning, which I suspect is the
general strategy for deploying most Flash media - but then I
would not know much about Flash, since I refuse it's
installation at every opportunity - ..which about sums up,
how effective the flash is handled by *my* browser.. ;)

Andrew T.

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apa-sf - 27 Aug 2006 11:51 GMT

> For comparison, modern Java (once it hits 1.5, I think)
> has become automatically 'self updating', unless the
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> minor version (as well as offering desktop shortcuts,
> menu items, and automatic updates, to boot).

That is correct but there are many people with older java (in most
cases 1.4) is not autoupdating JRE when it is launched.

> ( & BTW - you could always use the nested <OBJECT>/<EMBED>
> elements to do applet versioning, which I suspect is the
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>
> Andrew T.

Finaly I found neccessary information to create proper <object> and
<embed> tags and yes - it works :-) to bad that Opera is handling java
applet's tags in it's own way :/ In every other browser that I tested
(IE6, FF1, FF1.5, NS4, NS8, Avant) browser want to start downloading
proper JRE automatically/redirect user to java.com for manual downlad
of proper JRE installation file. And in the Opera - if user has JRE,
but to old according to the version info in <object>/<embed> it will
not prompt user - just lanuche the applet. And the applet crashes of
course ;]

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Andrew Thompson - 27 Aug 2006 12:21 GMT

> ....And in the Opera - if user has JRE,
> but to old according to the version info in <object>/<embed> it will
> not prompt user - just lanuche the applet. And the applet crashes of
> course ;]

Opera needed* special configuration to handle JNLP (webstart)
files, and was the one browser that refused* to stretch an applet
across 100% width/height of a web-page.

I have spent a long time practising not caring that Opera
fails, with great success.

* (in the past, not sure now)

Andrew T.

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Andrew Thompson - 27 Aug 2006 14:22 GMT

> > ....And in the Opera - if user has JRE,
> > but to old according to the version info in <object>/<embed> it will
> > not prompt user - just lanuche the applet. And the applet crashes of
> > course ;]

Wait a second. I'm having some vague memories of
a page I wrote to test various applet elements. It is here..
<http://www.physci.org/test/appletcall/>

>From the results*, I suspect Opera might behave correctly if

you offer it a *single* <OBJECT> element with *no* embedded
<EMBED> element. You might try it on a page of it's
own, linked from the main page.

The last of the 'test pages' linked above, uses a versioning
<OBJECT> element.

* Opera seemed to prefer the <OBJECT> element, but
would sometimes react in very unpredictable ways with
more complicated situations.

Andrew T.

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The oldest JRE version from those "popular"

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