Re: [SLUG] How to join the secret Java Society

From: Ian C. Blenke (icblenke@nks.net)
Date: Tue Aug 06 2002 - 13:10:45 EDT


On Mon, 2002-08-05 at 21:00, Paul M Foster wrote:
> > The good thing about Java though, particularly non-GUI Java apps,
>
> Umm, excuse some dumb questions. I've never coded in Java. I only know
> that it resembles C++ but does its own garbage collection. And that
> browsers can run Java apps if there's a Java runtime and the browser has
> Java enabled.
>
> So based on your post, is it true that you can run a Java app outside a
> browser? Second question is: how is it that you can have a "non-GUI"
> java app? Like one that could run in a curses environment? Or when you
> say "non-GUI", you really mean "has to run in X, but doesn't need a
> mouse to work"?

You can install the "WebStart" helper application. WebStart uses a XML
based Java Network Launch Protocol (JNLP) file to know how to pull down
class files and launch a Java application locally. WebStart is little
more than a MIME type handler for x-java-jnlp-file.

You can run a java app that just does simple stdin/stdout console IO.
There are classes out there folks have written to wrap ASCII based
terminal escape sequences like:

        Charva
         http://www.pitman.co.za/projects/charva/

Yeah, it's sick. But it can be done. A java application does have
read/write access to the console where it is started. If a java console
has terminal emulation, you can output the escape sequences via a class
wrapper (for curses-like support) or straight to the terminal (like a
termcap approach).

However, it's no less sick than something like VNCj:

        http://www.amherst.edu/~tliron/vncj/

Ok, so I like thin client. ;)
Even more sick would be native X11 in Java:

        http://www.jcraft.com/weirdx/

The possibilities are literally endless.

Typically, you will find Java versions of terminal emulators for
telnet/ssh/jxterm/etc, generally for applet use.

- Ian C. Blenke <icblenke@nks.net>



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