Re: Jawin on Applets

Hi Roy

Roy Collins wrote:
> Has aynone tried making a web applet using jawin?  What are the common
> downfalls?  Is this is good way to go?

I think it may only be a way to go on e.g. an intranet or other
scenarios where you have full controll of the clients installation.

> I am assuming the client would have
> to have Jawin installed so that their JRE could see it.

Correct the native dll most be located locally on the client machine.
But you have to change the security settings on the client too, before
it can load native code from an applet (at least if the applet is
downloaded from a webserver - and I assume it is?). The reason for this
is the Java sandbox/java2 security model, which denies untrusted code to
perform critical operations (and executing "random" native code as Jawin
does is *absolutely* a security risk).

>  The libraries that
> Jawin will act on would be located via the registry so that would not be of
> concern.  What would be a good way to have a web based application that
> uses
> Jawin but doesnt require the user to setup anything?

As far as I know - this is simply *not possible*, as this, as mentioned
above, would be a big risk to the user.

>  Is that even
> possible?
> Would it be better to distribute a jar and have them run that locally?

In my view, a client application using Jawin, should be seen as a
standard "fat" client-application. So if I were to create a client
application using Jawin, I would probably create a standard installer
performing "stuff" such as:
- Application: Install relevant jars and the Jawin-dll into an
application folder.
- JRE: either check that a supported version of JRE is present OR
include the supported version JRE in the installer (the choice depends
on whot the target client is? E.g. for an in-house installation, you may
have control over the client-machines, and "knows" that a JRE will be
present. For a "worldwide" installation to standard "grandma"-users - I
would consider it a good idea to include the correct JRE - otherwise the
support-requests to you would explode).
- Dependency software: The installer should probably also check that the
COM-object you will be using, have been correctly registered on the client.

Best Regards
Morten