Modifying Applet Embedding Applications

Applications written to use the Java Embedding Frameworks are still supported in Mac OS X version 10.2 but for future development of applications that need to display applets you should use the new Java Applet.plugin architecture. As illustrated in Figure 2-2, doing so will allow applets displayed in you application to take advantage of all of the functionality of Sun’s Java Plug-in. This provides both developmental benefits for applet developers as well as an enhanced user experience for the end user of applets displayed in your application. Since the Java Applet.plugin behaves just like a normal Netscape 4.0 style plug-in, documentation is available at http://developer.netscape.com/docs/manuals/communicator/plugin/.

Figure 2-2 Java Applet.plugin versus Java Embedding Framework

The Java Applet.plugin is also a much safer target for future development. Since it provides a consistent well documented interface, it is a more reliable reference than the Java Embedding Framework, which may change with future versions of the operating system or future releases of Java on Mac OS X.