Question

Loading an applet in the background or waiting message

Asked by: nivlam

We are deploying a java applet so that we can upload and download files.  The applet is slow to load and sometimes stops the browser from rendering the rest of the page until the applet is finished loading.  Unfortunately, I do not have permission to edit the java applet itself to display a loading message, so this will have to be done outside of the applet.

Is there a way to display some sort of "waiting" message?  I cannot use AJAX to asynchronously load the applet the same time the page is loading because it takes parameters which the user must specify, so that applet only loads when the user hits a button.  I'm also not very fond of the time it takes JVM to load.  Right now we have a dummy applet sitting on the previous page to "preload" JVM, so it won't take as long to load the real applet.  However, I do not like this solution.

Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong direction.  Any solutions?

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Asked On
2008-08-12 at 14:39:47ID23642909
Tags

DHTML, Javascript

,

IE6, IE7, Firefox 2.0, Firefox 3.0, Safari, Opera

Topics

Asynchronous Javascript and XML (AJAX)

,

JavaScript

,

Dynamic HTML (DHTML)

Participating Experts
3
Points
500
Comments
5

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Answers

 

by: ZvonkoPosted on 2008-08-12 at 15:08:26ID: 22217547

My proposal is to inject the applet html code firt after the page was loaded.
Something like this:

<span id="appID"></span>
<script>
window.onload=function(){
  setTimeout(setApplet, 100);
}
function setApplet(){
  var theSpan = document.getElementById("appID");
  theSpan.innerHTML = "<applet code=ArcTest.class width=400 height=400></applet>";
}
</script>

                                              
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by: scrathcyboyPosted on 2008-08-12 at 18:46:19ID: 22218509

"Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong direction.  Any solutions?"

No, this is typical of Java applets, which is why most efficiency HTML programmers never use them.  Zvonko's idea above is forcing a delay in the load of the applet -- Zvonko, I think you meant 1000 to 5000 (that is 1 to 5 seconds, javascript is in milliseconds, so 100 will be an insignificant delay).  His will work.

"so that applet only loads when the user hits a button."

This is perfect for javascript --

<BUTTON .... other properties .... onClick="showLoading()" >
<SPAN id="showmsg">&nbsp;</SPAN>

javascript --

function showLoading() {

[ plug in Zvonko's code here] with 2-3 second delay
then --
       document.getElementById('showmsg').innerHTML = "the applet is loading ...";
       setTimeout('clearMsg()', 5000);
}

That spins off loading of the applet, the message shows, the applet loads, and the message clears after 5 seconds.

 

by: scrathcyboyPosted on 2008-08-12 at 18:47:53ID: 22218518

oops. clearMsg() got lost, here it is --

function clearMsg() {
     document.getElementById('showmsg').innerHTML = '&nbsp;';
}

 

by: lzr0Posted on 2008-10-26 at 08:58:10ID: 22807645

Hi,
Is it possible there is a typo somewhere in the suggested original code? It does not load my applet at all, and the IE status shows "Done with error on page". The detail of the error in IE reads: Error: Expected ';'
The code I am using is attached.
Thanks.

<span id="appID"></span>
<script>
window.onload=function(){
  setTimeout(setApplet, 1000);
}
function setApplet(){
  var theSpan = document.getElementById("appID");
  theSpan.innerHTML = "<applet code="Generator.class" archive="Generator.jar, Ph14English.jar" height="350" width="715"><param name="language" value="English"></applet>";
}
</script>

                                              
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by: lzr0Posted on 2008-10-26 at 16:04:42ID: 22809163

Sorry for my previous comment here. I figured what was wrong with my code: I had to put '...'  instead of " ... "  around <applet>...</applet>, since I had "..." inside applet tags.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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