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I am relatively new to Java and have a Java application consisting of a couple of packages and a number of classes. I want to be able to run this application in a web browser. How do I go about doing this?

MC Emperor
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Shanon
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5 Answers5

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Java Web Start is a good technology for deploying Java applications over the web. You can start the application from a web page link, although the application runs outside of the web browser frame: Java Web Start Tutorial.

Java applets allow you to embed a Java application in a web page. It has some serious drawbacks for larger applications.

Servlets (and Java Server Pages) are appropriate technologies for server-side generation of web pages (and other web content) but these technologies won't help you to deploy an existing Swing-based Java application, unless you are prepared to replace the user interface.

richj
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See the section of the Java Tutorial on how to build and deploy applets.

skaffman
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    Applets no longer have any relevance other than academic. I.E. No-one outside of scholastic tutorials should be using them, so if this is a non-academic endevour then rather look into web-start or even better gwt. – crowne Feb 14 '10 at 19:28
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    @crowne: That's a bit extreme. While applets have declined, there are still quite a few useful applets out there, and the Java plugin has improved a lot. I see no reason to discount applets as a deployment option out-of-hand. – sleske Feb 14 '10 at 19:43
  • @crowne: I agree, but I was just answering what was asked. – skaffman Feb 14 '10 at 19:46
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    @sleske: given the capabilities and growth that are available in ajax and html5, you would be doing yourself a disservice by adopting a dying platform such as applets for any new work. Even if you can run new JavaFX applications as applets, you would probably be better off using an adobe front-end and java back-end, although the html5 progress will be eating into adobe's market share too, note their ongoing spat with lack of support from Apple. – crowne Feb 14 '10 at 20:44
  • @crowne, that's quite subjective. Do you have any data to support your evidence that applets are dying? There's been a lot of changes recently which has got applets back on track IMO, and Java penetration is on the rise. – Pool Feb 15 '10 at 13:36
  • @The Feast: there's a fair amount of similar opinion on this thread http://stackoverflow.com/questions/377593/javafx-is-now-out-are-applets-and-java-desktop-officially-dead-dying And I also recall the same sentiment being expressed in a textbook published in 2002 ISBN 9780321210739, although they then went on to use applets for the purpose of teaching java and OO. – crowne Feb 15 '10 at 21:23
  • @crowne, thanks, I've seen a lot of people subjectively dismissing them on here - but I think it's mostly due to the legacy of poor VM's in the past, things have changed a lot in the last few years (see a summary http://stackoverflow.com/questions/580995/why-do-applets-have-such-a-low-adoption-level/598419#598419 ). I guess a bad legacy is real tough to shift - after all people still come out with a generic "Java is slow" and mean it seriously. – Pool Feb 15 '10 at 22:19
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I've written some kind of JVM which precompiles Java classes to native JavaScript. Here is an HelloWorld example which runs java programm in the browser:

https://github.com/neo-expert/jsjvm_helloworld

it has also a WebGL demo which renders a 3D cube.

neoexpert
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The easiest way for you will be to use a servlet. What you need:

  • Apache Tomcat (Or any other Servlet container)
  • Knowledge of what a servlet is (basically a class that extends from servlet, like httpservlet)
Monachus
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If you want a really fancy web-browser based application written in java, then you should learn gwt.

crowne
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