The other night I downloaded Java 6 Update 10 (JDK) and installed it on my Windows Vista laptop to test drive the new applets plugin. I found that some applets show off the speedy startup time better than others. For example, I would say that every one of the applets at Applet Depot loads and is usable nearly instantaneously. Interestingly, the DotToDot applet crashed Firefox 3 many times, but works now?
On the other hand, every one of Report Mill's JavaFX Gallery applets take a good 10-30 seconds or longer to load. I have to watch the orange Java logo and progress bar while they load. Even after they load, some of them show a blank screen for 10+ seconds. I wonder what they are doing differently? Does the progress bar in the orange Java logo indicate how much of the applet and/or dependencies have been downloaded so far? I know you can replace the orange Java logo with a custom animated GIF, but I don't know how you would make it interact with the applet plugin to be able to draw a progress bar like that.
Working from his home office in Toronto,
Ryan de Laplante can be found developing software in
Java by day, and obsessing with technology by night.
Ryan has been designing and writing software for
IJW since 1998 and is very passionate about his work.
