THE JAVA APPLETS ANY SERIOUS WEB DESIGNER SHOULD HAVE

INTRODUCTION

In this applet, a magic light will make each letter or a message appear. The same light will make the message disappear and the next message will appear. The applet can become very beautiful if you configure it correctly. The applet has the following features:

• Messages support descriptions and URLs. Multiple target frames are supported.
• Supports a background image.
• Specify font type, font size and font style.
• You can specify the text color, light color, background color and the description text color.
• The applet has two light modes that gives you two unique effects.
• Confirmed compatibility with Netscape versions 3.01 to 4.5 and Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 3.0 to 4.1 for Windows 95/98/NT4. Also compatible with Internet Explorer 4.5 for Macintosh.

Before using this applet you must read the license agreement.

APPLET INFORMATION

DEPENDENT FILES

The following files must be included with the applet in order for it to function properly:

mmshiningmessage.class

GENERAL PARAMETERS

This applet is configurable with normal HTML applet parameters. The first thing that must be done is to configure the applet main tags:

<APPLET CODE="mmshiningmessage.class" WIDTH=400 HEIGHT=80>
</APPLET>

As you can see, the size in the example is 400x80 pixels. You can change the dimensions to whatever size you wish. However, you take note that sometimes a big applet requires more processing power which may be hard for some computers. The following parameters may not be changed:

<PARAM name="mandomartis0" 
value="This is an applet from Anibal's Essential Applets package">
<PARAM name="mandomartis1" 
value="It was developed by Anibal Wainstein / Mandomartis">
<PARAM name="mandomartis2" 
value="Get it at http://www.mandomartis.com/essentialapplets/">

These are Mandomartis credits are are used to identify the applet. The following parameter controls the general frame delay in milliseconds, and thus the frames per second (FPS). The default value is 70:

<PARAM name="delay" value="70">

COPY PROTECTING THE APPLET, THE HOSTNAME AND FILENAME PARAMETERS

The applet is a commercial applet and must therefore be copy protected for your server, so that no one can take the applet and use it for his/hers homepage. There are two parameters that handles this, the encrypted "hostname" and "filename" parameters. What happens is that the applet reads the hidden host name and file name in these parameters and compares it to the server name and file name that it is imbedded in. If they do not match, then the applet will not work. Note that with "filename" we mean both the filename AND the path to the file. Let us take an example:

Let us assume that the URL where the applet will be located is:

http://www.myhostname.com/myapplet/help.html

The host name in this case happens to be "http://www.myhostname.com"
and the filename is "/myapplet/help.html".

The hostname and filename parameters does not have to be exact.
So the possible host names could be "www.myhostname.com", 
"myhostname" or "myhostname.com". While filename could be 
"myapplet", "myapplet/help.html", "help.html" or just "help". 
For the applet the hostname and filename parameters are search 
keywords that are use search in those two strings
 

Please note that in the example above we have not specified the "http://". You must not do that. You should know that the hostname and filename part of the url where the applet is inbedded in must be specified separately. Also the hostname must be more than 4 charaters long.

You can specify several hostnames and filenames if your homepage files can be reached from two or more different servers or from several mirror sites. Suppose that you have a company and you have your own hostname, e.g. "www.yourcompany.com". You have an Internet provider named "internetprovider" as well. Visitors can then access your file through your host "www.yourcompany.com/myfile.html" and through your Internet provider "www.internetprovider.com/yourcompany/myfile.html". The first hostname could be "www.yourcompany.com" and the second "www.internetprovider.com". The filenames could both be "myfile.html.".

As we said earlier the hostname and filename are encrypted. Therefore you must use the encoder applet for each applet and enter the hostname or filename there. You have two fields there where you can write each hostname and filename. The resulting HTML parameter content can then be pasted into the HTML page. The resulting HTML code could look like this:

<PARAM name="hostname0" value="~y31u:PR.FrazjkRsfPhh+k">
<PARAM name="hostname1" value="dl34jk-d~sa:fas">
<PARAM name="filename0" value="dy">
<PARAM name="filename1" value="sadf:ds/dsfa">

To run the encoder applet that was included in the package, you open the HTML file "encoder.html" in your favourite web browser.

The last thing you should know is that if you have put the applet on an URL called "http://www.yourhost.com/index.html" then you must specify a slash "/" as filename. Because you can reach this URL by writing "http://www.yourhost.com/" and "http://www.yourhost.com/index.html". By writing a slash "/" you cover both possibilities. Here are more examples of hostname and filename specifications:

Your URL:                  http://www.hellespoint.com/
Recommended hostname:      hellespoint
Recommended filename:      /

Your URL:                  http://www.larshomepage.com/products.html
Recommended hostname:      larshomepage
Recommended filename:      products.html

Your URL:                  http://henkesimage.sweden.se/list/
Recommended hostname:      henkesimage.sweden
Recommended filename:      list

Your URL:                  http://myhost.lnet.com/~john/home.html
Recommended hostname:      myhost.lnet.com
Recommended filename:      ~john/home.html

The applet will "see" what you see in the adress field on your browser when you enter your homepage. As long as you remember this you will be able to configure the applet without problems. Note also that you must have the exact number of hostnames and filenames for else the applet will not work (one filename for each hostname).

SETTING UP THE MESSAGES WITH DESCRIPTIONS, URLS AND TARGET FRAMES

Write each message using the "message" parameter like this:

<PARAM name="message0" value="MMShiningMessage">
<PARAM name="message1" value="From Mandomartis">
<PARAM name="message2" value="The perfect applet for you">

Specify your first message in the parameter "message0", in "message1" you specify the second message and so on. The same system of adding messages is applied for the descriptions which will appear at the bottom of the applet ("description"), the URLs ("url") and target frame name for each URL ("target") respectively:

<PARAM name="description0" 
value="Mandomartis presents the MMShiningMessage applet">
<PARAM name="description1" value="Developed by Anibal Wainstein">
<PARAM name="description2" 
value="MMShiningMessage is the applet for you!">
<PARAM name="url0" 
value="http://www.mandomartis.com/essentialapplets/">
<PARAM name="url1" value="http://www.mandomartis.com/">
<PARAM name="url2" value="http://www.mandomartis.com/foryou.html">
<PARAM name="target0" value="_top">
<PARAM name="target1" value="_top">
<PARAM name="target2" value="_top">

Now the content of "description0" will be displayed when you move the mouse pointer across the applet area. If you click on the applet area then the applet will jump to the URL that you have specified for that message. Note the "http://" and the host on each URL. You MUST specify full URLs. Relative URLs will not work with this applet. If a target frame name has been specified then the URL will be invoked on that specific frame. The values "_top", "_self", "_left" and so on, are standard built-in HTML target frames.

SELECTING COLORS

With the "textcolor" parameter you can specify the color of the messages:

<PARAM name="textcolor" value="ffff00">

With the "lightcolor" parameter you can select the color of the magic light.

<PARAM name="lightcolor" value="2f1f00">

By having different strengths of the RGB components in the parameter you can obtain different light colors. Depending on the "addlight" parameter, which is explained later on, you should use this color parameter with care. If "addlight" is on, then each color component's hexadecimal value should not be greater than "2f", if you want to obtain good results. If "addlight" is off then the color value you specify here will be the exact color of the magic light. We will explain this later on.

<PARAM name="backgroundcolor" value="003f00">

The "backgroundcolor" is only effective if you do not use a background image.

<PARAM name="descriptiontextcolor" value="00ff00">

The "decriptiontextcolor" is the color that the description text will have.

FONT PARAMETERS

The font parameters affect the font type ("font" parameter), font size ("fontsize" parameter) and the font style ("bold" and "italic" parameters):

<PARAM name="font" value="Helvetica">
<PARAM name="fontsize" value="16">
<PARAM name="bold" value="no">
<PARAM name="italic" value="yes">

The font types can be "TimesRoman", "Helvetica", "Courier" and "Dialog". If you want the font style to be bold or italic then specify the value "Yes" on these parameters.

OTHER PARAMETERS

The "sleeptime" parameter affects the pause before next message appears and you specify the value in milliseconds:

<PARAM name="sleeptime" value="2000">

The background image can be specified by the "backgroundimage" parameter:

<PARAM name="backgroundimage" value="background.gif"> 

This parameter overrides the "backgroundcolor" parameter's effect if you specify it. By leaving this parameter blank you can disable the background image and use the background color instead. The background image will be resized to fit the applet window, automatically.

Use the "step" parameter to increase the animation speed:

<PARAM name="step" value="3">

The "addlight" parameter will affect the light effect.

<PARAM name="addlight" value="yes">

If "addlight" is set to "yes" then the light color will be added to the screen, giving the effect that there are several spotlights that are illuminating the text. If the "lightcolor" parameter has high values in each color component, then you can end up having white light as the effect. If "addlight" is set to "no" then the "lightcolor" parameter will be used to colorize the screen instead, and the color of the magic light will be the exact shade that you have specified. When "addlight" is set to "yes" you get a better effect, however it will not work when using a white background. If you use a white background then you should set "addlight" to off instead.

The two parameters "lightsizex" and "lightsizey" controls the size in pixels of the magic light in horizontal and vertical view:

<PARAM name="lightsizex" value="20">
<PARAM name="lightsizey" value="30">

EXAMPLE OF A FULL CONFIGURATION

The following HTML text is an example of an applet configuration:

<APPLET CODE="mmshiningmessage.class" WIDTH=400 HEIGHT=80>
<PARAM name="mandomartis0" 
value="This is an applet from Anibal's Essential Applets package">
<PARAM name="mandomartis1" 
value="It was developed by Anibal Wainstein / Mandomartis">
<PARAM name="mandomartis2" 
value="Get it at http://www.mandomartis.com/essentialapplets/">
<PARAM name="hostname0" value="zW!5bKOFjj'lGk+j=">
<PARAM name="filename0" value="cW">
<PARAM name="delay" value="70">
<PARAM name="sleeptime" value="2000">
<PARAM name="font" value="Helvetica">
<PARAM name="fontsize" value="30">
<PARAM name="italic" value="yes">
<PARAM name="bold" value="no">
<PARAM name="addlight" value="yes">
<PARAM name="backgroundimage" value="shiningmessageback.jpg">
<PARAM name="backgroundcolor" value="ffffff">
<PARAM name="descriptiontextcolor" value="afafff">
<PARAM name="textcolor" value="ffff00">
<PARAM name="lightcolor" value="2f1f00">
<PARAM name="lightsizex" value="20">
<PARAM name="lightsizey" value="30">
<PARAM name="step" value="3">
<PARAM name="message0" value="MMShiningMessage">
<PARAM name="message1" value="From Mandomartis">
<PARAM name="description0" 
value="Mandomartis presents the MMShiningMessage applet">
<PARAM name="description1" value="Developed by Anibal Wainstein">
<PARAM name="url0" value="">
<PARAM name="url1" value="">
<PARAM name="target0" value="_top">
<PARAM name="target1" value="_top">
</APPLET>

© Copyright 2001-2005 Mandomartis Software Company