Java Applet, few question

Question

i've got a few questions about applets in java.

Let's say that my app is Desktop application using Lucene, database is quite big (2GB, more than 2K elements), and search query is complicated too. I want to make a applet application using source code of my desktop app. And i want to know:

1. How heavy could i make applet? Is 7 MB to much ?
2. How fast can i make it? (Let's say 2 sec search + display results, with server on the same machine, 3GB RAM, 2.5GHz)
3. What with select text with mouse + ctrl+c, i have heard that it is quite hard to accomplished using Swing.
4. Is there any good software to black box GUI testing ?
5. What with OS ? Do i have to change something in app so it can work in Mac OS, Linux, Windows ?
6. What with Browsers ? Are they any problems with IE or any other ? Or is it solution that works fine everywhere?

Thx for help! Lukasz

Answer 1

1. How heavy could i make applet? Is 7 MB to much?

If you divide the size of your applet by the download-speed of your users (or upload speed of your server, if that's lower), you get the time the users have to wait.

With 7MBit/s mathematically 8 s. + some overhead: 10s. Is the Internet 3 times faster, the amount of time is 1/3 and so on. 20 MBit is typical DSL-speed here.

7KBit/s is GPRS-speed, often used by smartphones in cheap-mode. It takes 8000s or more than two hours for your Applet to download. Fortunately there is a solution for your problem, called Proguard. It can eliminate all unused classes from a fat .jar-File nearly automatically. Have a look

1. How fast can i make it? (Let's say 2 sec search + display results, with server on the same machine, 3GB RAM, 2.5GHz)

2K Elements sounds like nothing. But what is an element? How complex is your complex search? Unanswerable.

1. What with select text with mouse + ctrl+c, i have heard that it is quite hard to accomplished using Swing.

I recently became problems with cut'n'paste - that's why I found your post.

1. Is there any good software to black box GUI testing?

What do you want to test?

1. What with OS? Do i have to change something in app so it can work in Mac OS, Linux, Windows?

Normally, if you don't change anything, you will not have problems. If you try to build an EXE from your program, or call Runtime.getRuntime ().exec ("foo.exe");, or access Files like "C:\foobar" - then you will get Problems. But easy solvable, mostly.

1. What with Browsers? Are they any problems with IE or any other? Or is it solution that works fine everywhere?

Everywhere, where Java is installed.

1. Funny thing: The code is automatically formatted to start a new list on every citation > N. Lore ipsum ..., always starting with 1.

Laugh with me. :)

Answer 2

How heavy could i make applet? Is 7 MB to much ?

7MB is not unusual for an applet nowadays.

What with select text with mouse + ctrl+c, i have heard that it is quite hard to accomplished using Swing.

No, that is very easy using Swing. Create a JTextArea and it will be selectable with the mouse (and Ctrl-C will copy to the clipboard by default.) You do not automatically get a pop-up menu when you right-click however. You will have to add that yourself if you need it.

What with OS ? Do i have to change something in app so it can work in Mac OS, Linux, Windows ? What with Browsers ? Are they any problems with IE or any other ? Or is it solution that works fine everywhere?

Provided the right version of the Java plug-in is installed, it should work fine everywhere.