There was a JavaScript to Java bridge in most browsers -- you could simply write a JS event handler that called a public API in your applet. Before XMLHttpRequ

There was a JavaScript to Java bridge in most browsers -- you could simply write a JS event handler that called a public API in your applet. Before XMLHttpRequest became reliable across browsers, a fairly common trick was to use a 1 pixel Java applet to do the asynchronous calls to the server, and then call back out to JavaScript to manipulate the DOM. Java only "behaved differently" if you wanted your applet to paint a square of the screen. Which was more about the problem that browsers also didn't support SVG, so if you wanted an interactive diagram you had to isolate yourself from HTML.