We meet in Sun's building CUP-01 (Cupertino 1), Tuesdays at 3:30. Meetings are open; if you wish to join, please contact George Drapeau for details. Serious inquiries only, please.
The latest available Java plugin for Netscape 6 is the one that comes with Netscape 6.01. Please visit netscape to download Netscape 6.01 with the Java Plugin Java version 1.3.0_01 for Windows and Linux platforms. For Netscape and the Java Plugin on Sun Solaris please visit Sun.
Status reports from the weekly OJI engineering meeting are kept in this directory as plain text files.
Also check the mozilla.org status update page for more information
Now that Netscape 6 is available, many are asking: does Java work? Happily, the answer is yes, but not by default. You must choose either the "Complete" or "Custom" option when installing Natscape 6. When you choose the "Custom", you must make sure the "Sun Java 2" box is checked. This will install JRE 1.3.0_01.
The correct versions of these files are automatically installed when you run the Netscape 6 installer. If you already have a JRE on your machine when you elect to install Java with Netscape 6 Preview Release, it will be upgraded to JRE 1.3.
A final important note regarding running applets that reside outside a firewall: please visit this note about DNS spoofing and the Java plug-in.
If you want to see Java running on the Mac, visit [MRJ Plugin for Netscape 4.X].
As always, if you feel inclined to write your own Java VM and Java Plugin, take a look at Introduction to OJI Internals. This document is an introduction to the topic of what Mozilla requires of an OJI plugin.
Jeff Dyer is currently working on implementing Java-to-JavaScript security in Mozilla, and helping the Java Plug-In complete its implementation of signed applet support and HTTPS support. If you want to see his designs, please follow these links for Acrobat diagrams that show OJI Security Overview and an OJI Security Interfaces document.
The Open JVM Integration project (OJI) is working to extend the browser
to allow Java virtual machines to be plugged into Mozilla. OJI will allow
the applet and object tags to show Java applets on a page and support LiveConnect
(the bridge between Java and JavaScript). Most of the OJI project involves
extending the existing Plug-in
API to define what we're calling the Open JVM Plug-in API
. Although
some of these are JVM-specific much of the changes are of general interest
to plug-in developers.
Our strategy for developing the Open JVM Plug-in API is to enlist the help of third-party JVM providers and the mozilla.org community by periodically posting our source code to mozilla.org and by actively inviting partners to join us in the design and development process. We've set up the netscape.public.mozilla.oji news group for discussions. Currently we're working with JavaSoft, Apple and others to make their Java plug-ins be more full featured replacements to the Netscape JVM. We plan to have our partner's JVMs be available at the same time 5.0 is Released.
What does this mean for end-users? Several things:
For Java developers, this means:
And for Java VM providers:
How can you help? For now we're looking for people who can help review the code we've developed so far, and are willing to work with us to improve things. This includes JVM providers, as well as general plug-in developers. In the future, we'll need people to help us with testing and verification. The code now is primarily located in the following directories:
mozilla/modules/plugin
mozilla/modules/oji
The Open JVM Plug-in API depends on the XPCOM object model which is described in Extending Mozilla. Be sure to read that first, and stay tuned for more documentation and updated headers in the future.
We welcome your comments. Please direct them to netscape.public.mozilla.oji or netscape.public.mozilla.general.