IE and Java Applets

[Donny]

I have recently produced a site that uses Java Applets on the front page - which is the lead in to the site.

Whilst it works on both mine and the clients browsers she is getting a couple of email saying they cannot view the sites as Java Applets are not enabled.

One guy has gone as far to explain the situation saying the IE no longer supports Java Applets unless the plug in is loaded first. Is this correct as my IE browser had the capability to view Java built in. Also a lot of site now use applets so surely IE has been updated to support this.

I;m a relative newbie so any advice on this matter would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[rocknbil]

Welcome aboard Donny. You've just experienced what happens when you rely on something that not everyone may have.

I don't have an answer on the IE load issue other than what I experience (see below ) but someone will. To my knowledge this isn't true. But you should ALWAYS provide alternate methods of navigation for anything but straight HTML. This is true for Applets, Flash, and even images (a lot of people on slow connections turn images off.) ESPECIALLY on the front page.

I see more applets out there than I'd expect, and they load fine, but I still find them annoying. If you don't launch the Java run-time environment when you start the browser, when it gets to the site it has to load THEN. This makes the site appear very slow, when actually what is happening is the browser is waiting for your computer to finish launching Java. So no, I haven't seen it not work at all, at least not yet.

[tedster]

IE and Java is a long and complex story. Sometimes it's Sun's Java Machine, sometimes it's the MS Java Machine, and with each version and service pack of IE, you never know what's up.

Here are some pages on the Microsoft website - at least they serve to illustrate the level of chaos that surrounds the issue:

Microsoft Java Virtual Machine Support [microsoft.com]
Changes to Internet Explorer in Windows XP SP2, August 12, 2004 [microsoft.com]

So, you cannot depend on Java being configured as active. If you really want the Java functionality you have, then I suggest you find a way to provide a different version of the content to folks who can't see the applet (or have intentionally decided to disable Java.)

[Donny]

Thanks for the advice guys - still on a learning curve with this web stuff! Is there anyway of automatically detecting whether a browser has Java installed and if not, the user would then see a static page rather than the applet. The only other option is to have a page in front of this 'doorway' page that allows the user to choose which they want to see - static or java - which I think would be a bit messy.

[tedster]

There is a simple, basic test: navigator.javaEnabled(). Here's a previous thread on the topic.

Test Browser for Java [webmasterworld.com]

If your applet requires a certain version of java, or higher, you will need to test for that, too. You also may need to be on the lookout for the differences between Sun's JVM and the Microsoft version, MSJVM - all depends on what you've got going in the applet.