Java Applet No Workie Anymore!

[LarryG]

All sorts of things breaking this weekend!

OK, showing my age here ... but one of my sites uses an old java applet text scroller that was working fine till a very short time ago. In fact, my client just informed me it was not working, and she was right. See bottom right of the following site which normally has some messages scrolling under the LSLWSC NEWS header. (LSLSKI.COM (http://www.lslski.com))

Did a search on the FORUM for applets, and came across a note from YvetteKuhn stating the applet tag had been deprecated for the object tag. Guess I missed that one. Not a problem, I will reinvent the wheel one more time.

Actually figured the latest JRE probably broke it. After all it is an old TextScroller from Kevin Swan circa 1997.

<<<<HOWEVER >>>>

Happened to find a site HERE (http://kombat.org/Programming/TextScroll/index.html) still providing the download for this text scroller and noticed it still works FINE from that site. So what gives? A POWWEB hosted site does not run, but an outside site does? Granted, no changes have been made to that applet in years so something at POWWEB appears to have broke it. Viewing it from same browser so my settings appear to be OK.

Just curious if anyone else has had applet problems.

Thanks!

LarryG

[Autoload]

Scrolling applet working fine for me... IE 8 and Firefox 3.5.3

[IanS]

Strange - not working in IE8 for me, but is in Firefox 3.0.14 (maybe I should update my FF :cool: )

Edit: I updated FF to 3.5.3 and it still works for me!

[LarryG]

Thanks for checking to see what you see, but I have to ask ... you are describing the results of the LSLSKI.COM site page, correct?

I get no scroller in IE 8.0.6601 or FF 3.0.14 but I do in FF3.0.10, go figure.

Java Applets enabled obviously on those platforms. Obviously the client of mine has the same or similar problem. Maybe a hotfix from the evil empire is the reason for IE not working which is what she has, I am sure. But puzzled why FF would not be working in the later version.

LarryG

[Autoload]

LarryG.... basically the discussion is moot in my humble opinion. I think you (as well as all of us) just reinforced why not to use applets. Three different outcomes from three different people (at least). Different people will have different security settings, different browser and java patches from machine to machine will vary... etc... on and on...

Now that 1999 is over and applets have (or at least should have) outgrown their coolness factor.... the question becomes.... When are you going to remove that archaic shiznitz from your site and use something that will work? ;-)

[LarryG]

OUCH!
But the truth hurts.
Yes, need to update it ... point taken.

Thanks,
LarryG

[tpoynton]

http://www.hypergurl.com/verticaltext.html

[LarryG]

I knew there would be plenty of "canned" solutions. Just needed the time to GOOGLE them, so THANK YOU for the heads up.

Bottom line, am having to live with the age ol' addage of "if it aint broke, dont fix it". Just too many other things to work on. That is one reason that item has not been updated.

Ironically, I used the MARQUEE tag along time ago but as the article says but since browsers did not support all the same way, so I dropped that from use. Javascript is the next best thing for this, short of doing a FLASH snippet.

LarryG

[YvetteKuhns]

I wrote an article (http://powerpageswebdesign.com/articles_java.htm) about this a few years ago. The Java applets stopped working when the applet tag was depreciated and the object tag was recommended. There were issues with the JRE for different browsers, too. And you should enclose the attribute values in quotes.