BioCoRE Collaboratory FAQ : Using the Collaboratory : Control Panel :
What's all this about Web Start versions versus applet versions of the Control Panel?
The first way is as an applet in your web browser. Historically, this was the only way to run it. To run the Control Panel in a web browser you need a web browser that supported java, and has java swing "installed". The control panel is then tied to the browser. If you shut down your browser, the control panel goes away as well.
Netscape 4.x and Internet Explorer** include a customized version of java that was based off of Java 1.1 and do NOT include java swing. For these browsers, the user needs to download java swing (as is described at http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/biocore/swing_setup.shtml) and install it into their browser.
** Internet Explorer has traditionally included their own version of Java. With recent court decisions I think they might have quit including java altogether.
Newer versions of netscape (6+), Mozilla, and a host of other new browsers do not include java as part of the core package. Rather, they are designed to easily integrate with the java package that is available from sun.com. This is generally considered a good thing, because the browser programmers don't have to write java, and the user can update java to Sun's newest version. Java 1.2 and above automatically include java Swing. So, if you are running on one of these newer browsers, you are almost definitely using sun.com's java, and it already has java swing installed. (this is a simplification of things. You might have a different java than sun's, such as IBMs, or blackdown's, etc. But, as long as the version is 1.2 or greater, you already have Swing)
To further muck with things, on Windows you can install the sun java plugin into internet explorer and it can even be made to override the built in IE java.
The second (and preferred) way to run the
Control Panel is via java web start (as described at
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/biocore/javawebstart.shtml). If you run
the CP via web start you do NOT need java in your web browser. All you
really need is a web browser that is capable of running external programs
via the 'mime types' file. In fact, lynx, the popular text based browser,
can start the control panel via web start. So, you don't need swing or
anything in the browser itself. However, you do need to have webstart
installed along with the appropriate entries into the mime types file.
Our BioCoRE server sends a file of type
'jnlp' down to your browser and your browser (through the mime types)
knows that it needs to run the javaws executable on that file, and
then a completely seperate process is running for the control panel.
You can then shut down your browser and the control panel keeps on
running. Since the Control Panel isn't running as part of the browser,
it can complicate things a bit, though. In particular, you might see
difficulties with Web Start talking to your web browser. When you click
on a URL in the control panel, or when you pick certain menu options,
the Control Panel attempts to start a browser and show a certain URL.
Java Web Start is designed to provide the functionality of "opening a
URL in your preferred browser". It has built in functions that
you can call that automatically open a URL using the browser that you
have configured the Web Start program to use.
Traditionally, you can run 'javaws' and it has a preferences menu where
you can set your preferred browser, your versions of java that you
have, etc.
I'm using Web Start on Unix, but it insists on using Netscape instead of the browser that I like for opening web pages. How can I change this?