4 ms·

It's great to see Java Web Start finally being used in anger 24 years after its initial release.

by royjacobs 2y ago

xnx 2y ago
I'm familiar with applets, but hadn't heard of Java Web Start. Could Java Web Start interact with the DOM?
- p_l 2y ago
  Not really, Java Web Start essentially provided a way to download a fully-capable Java application running on normal JVM, from a click on website. It's been used in place of applets a lot, but mostly because you could provide a complex application that opened in a new window with a click (assuming you dealt with the CA shenanigans). It couldn't interact with DOM unless it accessed a browser over something like COM.
  - jtotheh 2y ago
    I worked on an app that was using Java Web Start still, as of January 2023. It was a problem, because JWS was not included in the parts of Java that were open-sourced, and was not available as part of recent OpenJDK versions of Java. Some open source JWS implementations exist, when I left that job though, the situation had still not been resolved in terms of finding a JWS replacement. It was imperative that we get off Oracle Java because of their expensive upcoming licensing changes. I wonder what ever happened..........
    - yuri91 2y ago
      It's now possible to run Java Web Start applications fully in the browser without any plugins: https://cheerpj.com/cheerpj-jnlp-runner/ https://cheerpj.com/cheerpj-jnlp-runner/ It's based on CheerpJ, a JVM that runs in the browser (using JS and Wasm).
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
hankman86 2y ago
Java Web Start always seemed like a lazy approach to bring legacy desktop apps into the web. Something you would associate with enterprise software, where end user experience apparently does not matter. I remember lengthy downloads of jar files, where eventually, some desktop window using very 1990s-looking Swing widgets would pop out. Not to mention that you needed to download a JRE (don’t remember if this was automatic on first launch). Even in the heydays of Java, desktop applications were never all that great. I remember how painfully slow Eclipse ran. And when I tried the WebStorm IDE a few years back, all the same problems still existed re memory management and some pronounced latency pressing a key and having the character appear on screen. WebStorm was also infamous for its code indexing runs, which pretty much froze my computer for a number of minutes. Not sure if that’s a Java problem though. People criticise Electron, but honestly: applications like Slack, Spotify and VS Code run much better than the Java-based desktop apps that I got to use.

It's great to see Java Web Start finally being used in anger 24 years after its initial release.

xnx 2y ago

I'm familiar with applets, but hadn't heard of Java Web Start. Could Java Web Start interact with the DOM?

p_l 2y ago
Not really, Java Web Start essentially provided a way to download a fully-capable Java application running on normal JVM, from a click on website. It's been used in place of applets a lot, but mostly because you could provide a complex application that opened in a new window with a click (assuming you dealt with the CA shenanigans). It couldn't interact with DOM unless it accessed a browser over something like COM.
- jtotheh 2y ago
  I worked on an app that was using Java Web Start still, as of January 2023. It was a problem, because JWS was not included in the parts of Java that were open-sourced, and was not available as part of recent OpenJDK versions of Java. Some open source JWS implementations exist, when I left that job though, the situation had still not been resolved in terms of finding a JWS replacement. It was imperative that we get off Oracle Java because of their expensive upcoming licensing changes. I wonder what ever happened..........
  - yuri91 2y ago
    It's now possible to run Java Web Start applications fully in the browser without any plugins: https://cheerpj.com/cheerpj-jnlp-runner/ https://cheerpj.com/cheerpj-jnlp-runner/ It's based on CheerpJ, a JVM that runs in the browser (using JS and Wasm).

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

hankman86 2y ago

Java Web Start always seemed like a lazy approach to bring legacy desktop apps into the web. Something you would associate with enterprise software, where end user experience apparently does not matter. I remember lengthy downloads of jar files, where eventually, some desktop window using very 1990s-looking Swing widgets would pop out. Not to mention that you needed to download a JRE (don’t remember if this was automatic on first launch). Even in the heydays of Java, desktop applications were never all that great. I remember how painfully slow Eclipse ran. And when I tried the WebStorm IDE a few years back, all the same problems still existed re memory management and some pronounced latency pressing a key and having the character appear on screen. WebStorm was also infamous for its code indexing runs, which pretty much froze my computer for a number of minutes. Not sure if that’s a Java problem though. People criticise Electron, but honestly: applications like Slack, Spotify and VS Code run much better than the Java-based desktop apps that I got to use.