JDisplay : Java Glossary

2007-04-26 by Roedy Green ©1996-2008 Canadian Mind Products
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The CurrCon Java Applet displays prices on this web page converted with today's exchange rates into your local international currency, e.g. Euros, US dollars, Canadian dollars, British Pounds, Indian Rupees… CurrCon requires Java 1.1 or later, preferably 1.6.0_06 . If you can’t see the prices, of you if just want to learn more about CurrCon, click here for help.

JDisplay

an Applet and back end to create the various colourised listings you see all over my website. I released the source. It consists of parsers for Java, HTML, SQL, XML, and BAT files that decide the colours, and an Applet to display and scroll the listings, and a macro preprocessor to either expand small listings as HTML inline or generate an <applet invocation to an Applet to display it. If you can't see the listings, here are things to check:

To use JDisplay to display listings on this website, you must have Java 1.5 or later, preferably 1.6.0_06, installed on your machine.
If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer, try another browser. Seriously. Microsoft has taken great pains, over and over, to screw up Java and every other mult-platform standardisation.
If you are using Internet Explorer 7, you must allow blocked content permission for Active X to run. This also gives permission to Java to run. Click the Information bar, and then click Allow blocked content. Unfortunately, this also allows dangerous ActiveX code to run. However, you must do this in order to get access to perfectly-safe Java Applets running in a sandbox. This is part of Microsoft’s war on Java. Don’t put up with it! Use a different browser.
Check the Java console for error messages. If you don't know how to interpret that message, feel free to email me at for help.
If you still can’t get the program working click HELP for more detail.

Get New Java Get New Browser Help

How It Works

JDisplay renders three different ways:

Inline
```
java.exe -version
```
With an iframe
With an Applet
view

If you don’t see anything, check out first that you can see Applets in general by looking at

Sun’s documentation on Sun’s Applet examples

and my Applet Collection, especially Wassup which will tell you which Java version you have installed. If no Applets work, try tracking down the problem with the help under JRE.

The JDisplay program is more complicated that you would imagine, so you you probably don’t want to be bothered with it just to display a few listings. I use static macros to generate the HTML, but you could generate it by hand.

JDisplay, Firewalls and MIME Types

If the problem is only with JDisplay, then likely the problem is with your firewall interfering the JDisplay getting its listing files. The files have the following mime types and extensions:

JDisplay file extensions and MIME types
Extension	MIME type
ser	application/x-java-serialized-object
bat	text/plain
batfrag	text/plain
java	text/x-java-source
javafrag	text/x-java-source
html	text/html
htmlfrag	text/html
sql	text/plain
sqlfrag	text/plain
xml	application/xml
xmlfrag	application/xml

If *.ser files are blocked, you will not see anything. If any of the others are blocked, the download button will fail.

While you are at it, you might as well check the complete list of MIME types to make sure you are not blocking any other critical kinds of file downloads.

Improving the Look

JDisplay and my website in general were designed with certain fonts in mind. If you don’t have them installed Java and your browser will substitute others, which won’t have the same metrics which means it might not look right. I suggest you install the following fonts:

Suggested Fonts For Viewing Mindprod.com
Font	Source	Cost mindprod.com CurrCon international currency Applet needs Java installed for it to display prices in any world currency. mindprod.com CurrCon international currency Applet needs Java installed for it to display prices in any world currency.
Bitstream Vera Sans Mono	gnome.org. This is my primary monospaced font.	free
Tiresias PCFont Z	Bitstream MyFonts.com. A highly legible font. This is my primary proportional font.	$24.75 USD .
Lucida Console	Comes with Windows. If you don’t have it, you can buy it, and any of the other Lucida family from Ascender Fonts	$30.00 USD
Lucida Sans	C:\Program Files\java\jre1.6.0_06\lib\fonts\LucidaSansRegular.ttf C:\Program Files\java\jre1.6.0_06\lib\fonts\LucidaSansDemiBold.ttf	free
Lucida Sans Typewriter	C:\Program Files\java\jre1.6.0_06\lib\fonts\LucidaTypewriterRegular.ttf C:\Program Files\java\jre1.6.0_06\lib\fonts\LucidaTypewriterBold.ttf	free
Lucida Bright	C:\Program Files\java\jre1.6.0_06\lib\fonts\LucidaBrightRegular.ttf C:\Program Files\java\jre1.6.0_06\lib\fonts\LucidaBrightDemiBold.ttf C:\Program Files\java\jre1.6.0_06\lib\fonts\LucidaBrightItalic.ttf C:\Program Files\java\jre1.6.0_06\lib\fonts\LucidaBrightDemiItalic.ttf	free
Tiresias Keyfont V2	download. For labeling keycaps.	free

If the fonts or the displays look flea-bitten, make sure you have anti-aliasing turned on.

Why JDisplay?

People have often asked me why I don’t just embed listings directly in my web pages, perhaps decorated with CSS style tags instead of fooling around with the JDisplay Applet. I do, I generate decorated HTML, but only for short listings. I use <iframes for medium sized ones, and an Applet renderer for long ones. For long ones, the data that the JDisplay Applet uses are much more compact than the equivalent HTML. With JDisplay, a long listing takes up only a small window on your screen. You an ignore it if you are not interested. Inline listings would create a huge long document to scroll through.

If you don’t have Java at all, you should see a button to download the listing to view in place of the listing. The problem comes when you have a malfunctioning Java. Then you won’t see anything at all.

Further, I am a Java evangelist. In particular I want to see more client-side Java computing. I think this 100% server logic talking to a browser, all the rage these days, is so sixties. So I demonstrate it where I can on my site with JDisplay, the CurrCon currency displays, and the many amanuenses Applets.

anti-aliasing
BitStream MyFonts
browser fonts
Font
How to use JDisplay
JDisplay Student Project
MIME

	Please email your feedback for publication, errors, omissions, broken/redirected link reports and suggestions to improve this page to Roedy Green :
	Canadian Mind Products
	mindprod.com IP:[65.110.21.43]
	Your face IP:[38.103.63.16]	The information on this page is for non-military use only.
	You are visitor number 15,945.	Military use includes use by defence contractors.
	You can get a fresh copy of this page from:	or possibly from your local J: drive (Java virtual drive/Mindprod website mirror)
	http://mindprod.com/jgloss/jdisplay.html	J:\mindprod\jgloss\jdisplay.html

How It Works

Inline java.exe -version

With an iframe

With an Applet

JDisplay, Firewalls and MIME Types

Improving the Look

Why JDisplay?

Inline
java.exe -version