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Takes the convenience of applets (zero installation, web launching) and adds full application capability. Highlights:
- Always get the most up-to-date version of the code with no installation or upgrade steps - just download from the web and launch!
- Client security: prevent potentially malicious applications from accessing local resources (files, printer). Or run signed, trusted applications outside of the web start sandbox.
- Incremental download of updated JARs. For enterprise environments, every client in the entire company can be upgraded by simply dropping in the new JARs on the webserver.
Resources
Webstart uses XML configuration files to specify which JARs, arguments and the rest. The XML file has a .jnlp extension, which is an initialism for Java Network Launching Protocol. A user can click on a .jnlp file in a web browser and JavaWebStart will download and launch the application.
In Mac OS X, if you click on a .jnlp file, it will launch right away; if you do so a couple more times, you will be prompted to make a MacOSX wrapper application for it and save a shortcut to.
You have the same behaviour on IBM OS/2 or eComStation from Serenity Systems.
That shows that whatever be your desktop operating system and hadware, users have a simple installation process.
Java Web Start is the simplest way to deploy really powerful Java applications. See some of the programs using Java Web Start at http://java.sun.com/products/javawebstart/partners.html
Articles
- If JavaWebStart is not an option for you, but you need easy installation, you could build a native application (no dependency to any Java VM) with GCJ. The user must only start this executeable and need not install a JavaVM?. Only libgcj must be present (and this could also be statically linked). This fits better with Microsoft's installer (MSI). -- Main.geggo - 26 Jul 2003
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