A JWS Installer for Checkers3D

Steps in Developing a JWS Application

The following seven steps outline the development process for a JWS installer. They'll be explained in greater detail as the BugRunner and Checkers3D applications are converted into JWS applications:

1. Write and test the application on a standalone machine, packaging it (and all its resources) as JAR files.

2. Modify the application code to make it suitable for deployment. The necessary changes will be minimal unless native libraries are used. In that case, each library must be wrapped up inside a JAR and loaded by the application's main( ) method via System.loadLibrary( ).

3. Create a new public/private keypair for signing the application and its component JARs. At this stage, a third-party certificate may be obtained from a certificate authority (CA). I'll delay talking about this until near the end of the appendix.

4. Sign everything with the private key: the application JAR, the extension JARs, and any native library JARs.

5. Create a deployment file (a JNLP file) using a file:// codebase so the installation can be tested locally. This stage requires the creation of application icons and a splash screen image, used by JWS.

6. Change the deployment file to use the host server's URL and place everything on that server. The deployment file will usually be accessed through a JWS portal page.

7. Test the installer on various client platforms, OSs, and browsers.

Some of these test clients shouldn't possess JWS.