Contents - Cultural View

Java applet 33
there are frequently a lot of them, so applets got a reputation as slow
loading components. However, since jars were introduced, an applet is
usually delivered as a single file that has a size of the bigger image
(hundreds of kilobytes to several megabytes).
Since Java's bytecode is platform independent, Java applets can be
executed by browsers for many platforms, including Microsoft
Windows, Unix, Mac OS and Linux. It is also trivial to run a Java
applet as an application with very little extra code. This has the
advantage of running a Java applet in offline mode without the need
for any Internet browser software and also directly from the
development IDE.
Many Java developers, blogs and magazines are recommending that
[16] [17]
the Java Web Start technology be used in place of Applets.
A Java Servlet is sometimes informally compared to be "like" a
server-side applet, but it is different in its language, functions, and in
each of the characteristics described here about applets.
Technical information
Java applets are executed in a sandbox by most web browsers,
preventing them from accessing local data like clipboard or file system.
The code of the applet is downloaded from a web server and the
browser either embeds the applet into a web page or opens a new
window showing the applet's user interface.
A Java applet extends the class java.applet.Applet, or in the case of a
Swing applet, javax.swing.JApplet. The class must override methods
from the applet class to set up a user interface inside itself (Applet is a
descendant of Panel which is a descendant of Container. As applet
inherits from container, it has largely the same user interface
possibilities as an ordinary Java application, including regions with
user specific visualization.
The domain from where the applet executable has been downloaded is
the only domain to which the usual (unsigned) applet is allowed to
communicate. This domain can be different from the domain where the
surrounding HTML document is hosted.
Using applet for non trivial
animation illustrating
biophysical topic (randomly
moving ions pass through
voltage gates) [3]
Using Java applet for computation - intensive
visualization of the Mandelbrot set [4]
Java system libraries and runtimes are backwards compatible, allowing to write code that runs both on current and on
future versions of the Java virtual machine.
Embedding into web page
The applet can be displayed on the web page by making use of the deprecated applet HTML element, [18] or the
recommended object