Answers in this category:
Why are the times wrong in the chat windows?
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?
What's all this about Web Start versions versus applet versions of the Control Panel?
Why am I getting errors about file locks in my java console?
How do I display the Java Console for the Control Panel Web Start application?
When I try to run the Java Web Start program I get the splash screen for a few seconds and then it disappears

You need to run your Web Start manager program. This will be in whatever directory you've installed webstart. The name of it is 'javaws'. You might look in

/usr/local/javaws/javaws 

Another interesting bug with Web Start occurs when you have a web browser (let's call it X) open, and you have a different browser specified via the manager instructions given above. Web Start will actually attempt to load URLs in BOTH browsers. So, let's say that you have Mozilla open, and you have Netscape specified with the manager. If you click on a URL in the Control Panel, the URL will be opened in Mozilla, and Netscape will be started as well to display the URL. To fix this problem, be sure to set the browser in the manager to the same browser that you normally use.

Note: If you are on Windows, Web Start automatically uses your "default" browser and doesn't have the option to set the browser.

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.

> Jan 20, 2004 3:50:18 PM java.util.prefs.FileSystemPreferences syncWorld
> WARNING: Couldn't flush user prefs: java.util.prefs.BackingStoreException:
Couldn't get file lock.

From time to time, it might be useful to view the Java standard out text console. The BioCoRE Control Panel can send debugging information there as can other Web Start programs that you might want to run. In its default configuration, you won't ever see the Java console. To enable it, you need to go into the Java Web Start application manager (On Windows you probably have an application called 'Java Web Start' in your Start menu, and on unix it is probably an application called 'javaws' that might or might not be in your path). On Mac OS X, the console is automatically enabled, and console messages can be found in ~/Library/Logs/Java Console.log, and can be viewed using the Console application in Applications/Utilities.

In the application manager, you can go to File | Preferences and navigate to the Advanced tab where you can enable the Java console. You have the option of having it pop open every time you that you run an application (Show Java Console), or you can have it automatically log the output to a file (Log Output). Personally, I would recommend just having it log the output to a file. That way you don't have an extra window everytime you run an application, but you can still look at the output if you wish to do so. Just choose a log file name that is somewhere that you can remember it. The BioCoRE Control Panel shouldn't ever put too much text there, but some programs can, so you might want to check the size of the log file on occasion.

If you find yourself in this position, you have a couple of options:

1. You can delete your entire Java preferences directory, thereby getting rid of the corrupted file. On windows, this is typically a folder called .javaws and is in your Documents and Settings folder. On unix, this is typically in ~/.java. This can, of course, have undesirable side effects.
2. You can start manually editting the preferences file itself. On windows this is a file called javaws in a .javaws folder in your Documents and Settings folder. On unix this is ~/.java/.deployment/deployment.properties.

   The file is a text file with name/value pairs. Useful pieces:

   deployment.javaws.logFileName=/tmp/webstart.txt
   deployment.javaws.logToFile=true
   
   deployment.javaws.browserPath=/usr/local/bin/firefox
   
   javaws.cfg.cache.dir=C\:\\Documents and Settings\\yourUserName\\javaws_cache
   

   The first set (about log files) tells webstart to log the java console output to a file.

   The second set (about the browser path) tells webstart which browser to use. This will probably only be necessary on unix.

   The third command, about the cache directory, is sometimes necessary on Windows and can occur if a user is running on a machine where they don't have permission to write files everywhere.