Known Problems (Java Embedding Plugin)

A) Java Embedding Plugin

1. Applets temporarily "flicker" or disappear completely as you scroll or resize the browser window. This is annoying, but I'm probably not going to be able to do anything about it. And in any case the problem has a positive side -- because applets aren't displayed while a page is being scrolled or resized, these operations are much quicker (on pages that contain Java applets) with the Java Embedding Plugin than they are with Safari.
2. There are some minor problems with context menus (invoked by Control-click or Right-click) in Mozilla and Firefox after an applet has been loaded into a page: Context menus no longer disappear when you lift the mouse button. Dragging the right mouse button to a selection no longer invokes its action -- you have to lift the button and then click it again on your selection.
3. Applet printing doesn't work. (But Mozilla.org browsers don't support applet printing on Mac OS X, either.)
4. The Java Embedding Plugin is incompatible with Apple's JIS Keyboard (model number M9034J/A, marketed by Apple only in Japan). Once you've loaded at least one Java applet into a browser window, many JIS Keyboard functions no longer work properly in that window.

   http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=315972

   I won't be able to resolve this problem until I get hold of one of these keyboards. But Apple makes it very difficult to obtain one outside of Japan (it's not available from the US "Apple Store", and the Japan Apple Store won't ship to addresses outside of Japan). I've not yet found any way around this.

B) MRJ Plugin JEP

None that I'm aware of.

C) Mozilla "Family" of Browsers

1. All current versions of Mozilla.org browsers for OS X display ghost images of Java applets in one tab when switching from that tab to another.

   http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=277067

   Recent versions of the Java Embedding Plugin (0.9.5+e and later) contain a workaround for this problem, which seems to (mostly) eliminate it.

2. All versions of Mozilla.org browsers cause a large number of inappropriate updates to Java applets (either directly, or by sending update commands to the Java Embedding Plugin, via the MRJ Plugin JEP). Without my workarounds, Java applets would often be redisplayed as much as several times a second (even when not scrolling or resizing the browser window), and partially or wholly overwritten. I call this the "spurious updates" problem.

   The problem keeps getting worse (particularly with the latest Firefox alphas and nightlies). But it seems to have many different causes, so it's very difficult to pin down. The Java Embedding Plugin has long had workarounds for this set of problems. But I keep needing to revise the workarounds as new cases surface.

   To get an idea of the scale of the problem, add the following to the Java Control Panel's "Runtime Parameters", and watch the messages scroll by in the Java Console:

   -Djep.debug.updates=true

Recently Fixed Problems

A) Java Embedding Plugin

1. (This was item #A4 in the lists above. It's fixed as of JEP 0.9.6.)

   Apple's JVM doesn't have access to the browser's cookie store when you're using any other browser than Safari. There is a workaround for this (you can make the applet store cookies itself), but many applet authors seem to be unaware of this (or unwilling to use it).

   http://developer.apple.com/qa/qa2001/qa1265.html

   http://developer.apple.com/qa/qa2001/qa1124.html

   http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1414542&group_id=107955&atid=649116

   http://lists.apple.com/archives/Java-dev/2006/Mar/msg00278.html

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