Introduction

In Chapter 16, I discussed straightforward client applications that communicate over a socket. Chapter 17 covered simple server topics. Now we turn our attention to a variety of other client topics. First let's look at Java-based web applet client programs. Applets are, as you probably know, small programs that run inside and under the control of a web browser. There's a discussion of Applet versus JApplet and the Applet methods. Deploying an applet is no different from deploying a web page you simply copy it into the web server directory but you need an HTML page to invoke it (discussed in Recipe 18.1). We then discuss some additional client-side topics, such as loading a URL, that apply both to applets and to applications. Other books talk about servlets, which are programs similar to applets but designed to run inside the process of a web server. Applet deployment requires some considerations; see Recipe Recipe 23.6 for a means of ensuring that a user's browser has a Java runtime compatible with your applet. Recipe 23.13 contains information on Java Web Start, which combines applet-like downloading with full application capabilities.