The feedback continues from Guy Kawasaki's readers et al.
Tim Steele informed me that the current version of my page blows away the Solaris 1 version of Netscape 2.0 instantly. "The Solaris 2 version is OK, and I'm assuming the Mac version works too 8-)" Big assumption. Thanks Tim.
HD Morgan says that his Macintosh 7500/100 running the MacJava 2.0b1 under System 7.5.3s12 hangs up when he accesses my page. This is the second report that animations give the new browser some problems. Since I have an animation right at the top of the page...well, it's kind of ironic that those with MacJava 2.0b1 can't get into the page about MacJava. Maybe, I'll split the applets out onto other pages for awhile. I may have to declare my MacJava page a No Applets Zone. :-(
Chris Spruck let me know that I had a bogus link for the MacJava 2.0b1 download. Netscape has finally officially announced the new browser on their site, so I just put a pointer to that.
Hillel Cooperman correctly pointed out that Natural Intelligence has had a Mac Java product since Jan 5, 1996. In fact, the more trouble I'm having with the raw Sun JDK, the more attractive a third party development environment looks.
Thanks for all the feedback folks! Now back to our irregular programming!
Another short (unscientific) diversion:
Who runs it good and who don't run it good:
Mac 7500/100 don't
Solaris 1 don't
Solaris 2 do
PowerMac 8100 don't
8500 do
6100/66AV do
7500, OT1.1b16 do
680LC40 don't
Centris 610 do
7200/90 do
2/28/96 Some feeback from Alex Rosen:
I wrote:
>I discovered that you can't use an URL that is wider than the entry box on the Applet Viewer. So that excludes any address over 49 characters long.
Alex responded:
You can actually use as long a URL as you want - the problem is that the text
doesn't scroll, so it doesn't look like anything's happening when you type,
and you can't tell if you've screwed up. You can get around this by entering
the URL in chunks, starting from the *end*.
For example, to view the page "http://www.domain.com/really/really/long/path/
name.html", first type "really/long/path/name.html". Then use the mouse or
keyboard to back up to the beginning, and type "http://www.domain.com/really/"
I wrote:
>You can drag and drop html files onto the Applet Viewer, but not .class files.
Alex responded:
It's even easier if you set their filetypes cleverly. I set my .class files
to type 'Javc' (Java Compiler). Then to compile them, I just double-click on
them. (This means that to edit them I have to drag and drop them onto BBEdit.
I keep an alias to BBEdit in all my Java project folders for this.) I also
set my HTML files to 'AppV', so that double-clicking on them will open the
applet in Applet Viewer.
Thanks Alex.
2/29/96 I'm formatting some special pages as I am working through the Java material. I'll have it online in a few days. Until then I have some quips and tips.
Peter Howell, who figured out that the ghost menu item File Save could still be used with Command-S has a new tip that will help with the limitations of the File Open URL function on the Applet Viewer.
Peter writes: I found a shortcut for typing in long addresses into the Open URL
dialog box in Applet Viewer. Download a shareware utility called
TypeIt4Me. With it, you can select the URL in Netscape, add it to
TypeIt4Me's entries, with an appropriate shortcut, then go into
applet viewer, type your short cut, and PRESTO, the URL is
magicly typed in.
So for example, whenever I type 'tw' and press space, TypeIt4Me
erases tw, and writes: http://www.rain.org/~da5e/tom_robbins.html
Cool hunh?
Definitely cool, Peter. Thanks a lot!
Here's some ideas I had for applets I don't want to see:
Five Bad Applets (or putting Java Where Sun Don't Shine)
Poetry Generation Applet
Expresso-based program that generates Beatnik doggerel whose sole rhyming capability is acheived by causing the word, "man" to be appended to the end of each line.
Sample: Like I had a cool old lady, man.
Till she ran off with the Sparc-lets man, man.
Modern Art Applet
Want to be a Picasso, but you have even less talent than he did? This is an applet whose only drawing tool is a triangle generator. There is a library of human form icons, but all body parts come in sets of three.
Hog Futures Applet
Bases all financial scenarios on old reruns of the Dukes of Hazard focusing on Boss Hogg's financial shennanigans. BTW, it has an excellent rendering routine, but creates only biological models of pig fat chromosomes.
The Al Gore Animation Applet (aka the Algoreythm)
Now this was a challenge that no programming language could overcome.
The GoodbyeWorld Applet
A simple piece of code that prints out the email address of Dr. Jack Kervorkian.
class GoodbyeWorld {
static public void main(String args[]) {
System.out.println("kevorkian@endofln.org");
}
}