This page ©2003 Four Papayas and a Fnord Software (4PF)Last update: 16-Mar-2003
4PF web pages are written in XHTML. This means that certain browsers which can support recent versions of Java will still not be supported on these pages, because the only way to do so requires using obsolete HTML. This is true of browsers that are either too old (Netscape 4.x) or not yet fully compliant (OmniWeb).
We also make extensive use of modern layout techniques (using CSS1 and a little CSS2.1). We attempt to make these styles as simple as possible, but we don't attempt compensate for every known browser idiosyncracy. Some odd layout quirks may result, even with the most modern browsers, but we intend the pages to be at least readable on any browser.
4PF heartily endorses the Opera browser. We also encourage you to try the Mozilla browser. Both of these run under a variety of operating systems and strive for standards compliance. Netscape (6.0 and above) is based on the Mozilla rendering engine Gecko, and there are several other browsers using Gecko as well, in particular Camino (formerly Chimera) for Macintosh OS X and Galeon for Linux. These browsers (should) also support "Open Java Integration" to utilize any Java for your platform that follows the OJI specification.
Mozilla, even as of their 1.0 version, is still a work in progress and may exhibit some
problems. With respect to Java, we have seen Mozilla occasionally lock up under Windows
with versions of the Sun J2RE prior to 1.3.1_04; and its integration with the
Macintosh OS X Java is still iffy, but this problem seems to be shared with the other
browsers for OS X. This situation is likely to improve with upcoming releases.
A symptom that was fixed Mozilla 1.0 was reintroduced in Mozilla 1.2 and has not been fixed yet as
of v.1.3. This symptom affects the height of the Kaliko applet. The Kaliko game page has
been tweaked to address this problem, but the result is not perfect. Hopefully, this will be
repaired in a subseqent release.
Netscape users should be running at least version 6.2. Version 7.0x should be fully compatible with Mozilla 1.0 and is recommended. (Currently Netscape is at 7.02.)
Internet Explorer versions 5 and above for the Macintosh provides decent standards support, and will use the OS X Java 1.3. However, as with Mozilla, IE5's Java integration is prone to problems.
Internet Explorer for Windows, versions 4 and above, should work fine with our applets, so long as the system's Java version is up to date. With IE, the Sun Java Plug-in is required: We are unaware of an IE-compatible plug-in for the IBM Java, and Microsoft's own Windows JVM is not compatible with Java 2.
Internet Explorer for Unix will probably not be able to load the Java applets on our site, but we have not had access to a system to test it on. Should Microsoft release IE6 for Unix, this may combine sufficient compliance to standards with the system's up-to-date Java, and so work with our applets; we aren't holding our breath.
In order to use the Java Plug-in, Windows versions of IE require an ugly, if technically standards-compliant, bit of HTML to load the applet. We at 4PF find this necessity to be at best unfortunate; however, given Microsoft's antipathy towards Java, it seems unlikely to change.
Internet Explorer has also been a source of numerous security problems. Altho Microsoft has lately increased its efforts to address this issue, our confidence in IE is still low.
Because of these various issues, 4PF recommends you choose a browser other than Internet Explorer as your default browser. If you find yourself needing to use IE for a website that targets it, we recommend using at least version 5.0 with the available security patches. There are certain behavior issues with later versions which may make upgrading further somewhat unattractive; on the other hand, at least one "security update" for 5.0 actually upgrades the browser to 5.5, so upgrading may be difficult to avoid. With version 6, Microsoft has improved IE's standards compliance quite a bit; but the unfortunate HTML is still required to invoke a Java 2 applet.
4PF web pages do not support the Internet Explorer capability of automatically downloading a version of Java when needed; if your version is too old, or you have no Java version, you will need to download and install the Plug-in manually. The instructions at Sun's site are quite useful and, for the 1.4 Plug-in, feature an automatic installer for Windows XP.
4PF applets are written to run on the Java 2 platform, developed with the 1.3.0 version of Java from Sun Microsystems, available for Windows, Linux and Solaris. Any 1.3, 1.4 or later version of Java should be able to run our applets, including the IBM and Apple implementations. Note, however, that some older browser versions (in particular, early versions of Netscape and Internet Explorer) simply cannot be configured to use any version of Java 2.
Our Java Compatibility Test page will attempt to determine which version of Java is available with your browser.
Several other Linux distributions of Java are available; see Blackdown for a list. Integration of these JVMs into your browser is left as an exercise to the user, altho the Konqueror and Opera web sites offer some help.
Macintosh users may check Apple's Java page for information. Mac OS X currently ships with Apple's MRJ 3 (Java 1.3) installed. They have recently released a new, 1.4.1 Java (for OS X 10.2.3 and above). Unfortunately, Macintosh users with an OS 9 or earlier system are out of luck; the latest available version of Java for these systems is too old.
Also note that there are currently known problems with the OS X Java and its integration to browsers, particularly when running a Mac Classic browser under OS X. The situation with OS X has been further complicated by the release of Jaguar; this new (10.2) version of the OS now includes a compatible version of Sun's Java Plug-in, but browser integration is still catching up.
Reported success with our Kaliko applet under OS X has been extremely limited; so far, only Mozilla 1.1 is known to work at all. Please let us know of any success with our applets under OS X.
For the adventurous, IBM's Java (Windows, OS/2 and Linux) can be found at IBM's DeveloperWorks site. Their limited online documentation does not explain whether or how this Java is usable with Internet Explorer, nor whether it is OJI-compliant and so compatible with Gecko-based browsers. Opera once provided information on using the IBM JVM, but their current online documentation only refers to Sun's JRE. If you manage to combine IBM's Java with any browser, please let us know your recipe.
4PF web pages make some minimal use of simple JavaScript. This is used primarily to detect the make and model of your browser and tweak the contents of the page to compensate for any known compliance issues, specifically for setting up and running Java applets. In general, we try to make the pages work even if JavaScript is not available — but we cannot provide support to noncompliant browsers without it.
In particular, if you're running Internet Explorer under Windows, and you want to run one of our applets, you'll need to have JavaScript enabled for correct browser identification. Other browsers may exhibit various minor display problems if JavaScript is not enabled. On the other hand, browsers with incomplete JavaScript implementations but modern support for HTML may do better with JavaScript turned off.
4PF does not use cookies. We do not open new browser windows without warning. We do not screw around with your current browser window. We do not use redirects. And of course, we do not run ads. (Can you feel the love?)
It is simply not possible for us to test all versions of browsers on all operating systems with all available versions of Java. We do want our applets to be accessible to as many people as possible, so if you have a setup that you believe should work but doesn't, please let us know.
We particular would like to ensure our Java applets work for Macintosh OS X! If you are running any revision OS X, but particularly Jaguar, and would assist us in ensuring that the major Mac browsers (especially Safari) are working, do contact us.