I'm trying to make a java web start application portable. It stores some stuff in the user's home directory, and also a bunch of stuff in the cache. I'm using portableapps.com's portable java, and I've got it to store the home folder stuf using -J-Duser.home="Data", but how do I change the web cache, preferrably to a folder called "cache" in the same directory.
Take a look at this page. If you are on Windows you can go to the Java Control Panel and change the cache directory that way.
Related
I need some open source and cross platform framework/tool/library which provides functionalitites commonly available to native desktop applications, for example:
A user-friendly way to install the application
Finding out user's home directory
Finding out directory for persistent storage for files and configuration (can be different from home directory)
Finding out a suitable temporary directory for temporary storage of files
Starting a component in background when user logs in
Ability to open files with corresponding default programs
Does one exist?
I have used IzPack sometimes back. It's pretty good.
I have a web application built on the JVM. In this application the users are able to upload files. I read the contents of the file and do "something" with it.
In addition to this, I would like to give option to the users to put in a directory path. This directory path will be read by the application and the directory will be scanned for all relevant files (.CSV). And each will be processed.
Questions
Will the web-application be able to scan the directory located on the users machine? Or the directory path need to be in a network to which the web-app has access to?
I will be using the Commons IO package to scan the directory for files and process the files, is there a better approach?
You cannot access file system of user machine from pure web application. This task can be implemented using trusted applet or java application executed via java web start or trusted flash component or other native component (browser plugin).
Applets are almost obsolete and require JVM on client side. Java web start still requires JVM. All signed components (java based, flash, native code) require user approval.
I think that better and more modern way is to use a great feature of HTML 5 that allows not navigation to specific location on disk (that was possible since HTML 1.0) but also selecting a full directory.
Take a look on the following discussion for details: Does HTML5 allow drag-drop upload of folders or a folder tree?
I want to distribute a swing app to my client. In that application two property file are there, which should be visible to client so that they can edit, I can not give it as runnable jar. Also I want something like apache-tomcat zip file which once you extract it will arrange folder structure also will give property file to edit and on next run it reads that property. Also apache-tomcat starts with startup.bat or startup.sh like that I also want.
Use Java Web Start to install and update the application.
User editable properties
Put them in (a properties file in) the Jar
When you go to check for the properties, do so using the PersistenceService. If they do not exist, read them from the text file in the Jar, and put them there. Here is a demo. of the service.
When the user wants to see/edit the properties, show them via a JOptionPane.
Desktop integration
JWS offers desktop shortcuts and menu items to launch apps., when supported by the platform, as well as an API to install and remove them (see the IntegrationService). Much slicker than batch files!
Currently we are using GetDown to handle distribution of our swing applications. We use Tomcat to distribute updates and GetDown to download those updates. It's really flexible and powerful, and much better than java WebStart.
A good tutorial : http://www.hascode.com/2012/05/creating-updatable-java-applications-using-getdown-and-the-getdown-maven-plugin/
Project website : http://code.google.com/p/getdown/
If I understand you correctly you want a tool to make distribution package for your application. That generates folder structure and unpacks application and data files to this structure.
There are many free and commercial setup builders. I think you would prefer multi-platform builder, so look for java setup builder.
Check this thread, this question was discussed there.
I'm writing a Java application which requires a number of resource files (there will be about 100 files of 20-40K each). They are not edited by the user, but will require periodic updates (the application will have a function to check for changes to the resource files and download them). Ideally, the application should be cross-platform.
Allowing write access to a subdirectory of the program directory is generally frowned upon. If I was doing it as a Windows application I might put them in Application Data, but that's not going to fly cross-platform. What would be the best place to put them?
I would typically create a directory (name starting with a period ".") in user's home directory (System.getProperty("user.home") if I am not mistaken) and use that for application specific storage. Alternatively, you could take the directory name from user at the time of application installation.
Have a directory you use to keep these files in. Put that information in a properties configuration file. When you start up load the configuration file from your application install directory. From that properties file it tells you where to find your file directory. When your installer runs it can write out this configuration file for the platform you are installing on, and that can be OS specific.
Provide a configurable location, but default to a directory in the user's home directory, or in an OS-specific location.
You'll have to deal with this in a platform-specific way no matter what. You have a few options under OS X, though. For unix-like systems either a home directory, or perhaps something under /var.
That said, I don't believe a program managing its own data in its own directory is a bad thing; consider a program with an embedded database or similar. It's much more reliable to use an app home directory.
i have a java based web application, i have the source code as well as the war file, the application uses mySql and need some web server like tomcat all to be added to some package that can be directly installed on window and linux machines directly..
i need to setup DB, WebServer, and app in one go. Would be great if it can create services for all as well.
is it possible???
i mean the user should just give the location to store and everything should get stored in one go, is it feasible? and if yes please guide me how to do so...
In short: Yes, it is.
Projects like XAMPP are already following that approach. All relevant software components are inside a single ZIP file which you can extract to an arbitrary location on the user's harddisk. All configuration then uses relative paths when referencing files.
So essentially, you will have to put in a little effort in advance to make the "installation" as easy as possible. Maybe you can simply build upon a project like XAMPP and use the infrastructure already provided?