Articles : JavaBoutique's Introduction to Java :
Distributing Applets :

Preparing your Applet for the Web

Currently, distribution is fairly inconvenient for the developer. To support Internet Explorer, it is best to create a CAB file. Although the most recent versions of Internet Explorer support JAR files, the CAB format works across the widest range of versions. Further, if you want to sign them, you may want to use CAB.

To support the newest browsers from Netscape and Sun you should create a JAR file. To support older versions of Netscape Navigator, you'll need to include a ZIP file.

Finally, you should leave the class files in their raw form for any miscellaneous browsers that have been slower to adopt the newer technologies.

So how do you go about preparing all of these compressed archives? In the next sections we will walk you through the process so it can be as painless as possible.

Selena Sol contributes to the JavaBoutique's Introduction to Java. Selena curently works for Barclays Capital in London, one of the leading global investment banks in Europe and has worked as a software developer for the National Center for Human Genome research, Microline Software, Neuron Data, and Electric Eye in Singapore. Selena is perhaps best-known for creating the Public Domain Web Script Archive (Extropia) and writing several books on Web Programming (Perl, CGI, Java).
Email: selena@extropia.com