Tutorial

Here is a complete sample to understand how to use Easy Applet Builder. 

First launch Easy Applet Builder (let’s say ‘EAB’) : you are in the main window. You have to select an applet, the applet you are about to build. You can see samples of the applets.To do this, go in the menu ‘Applets samples’ or right click on an applet name item. For instance select the ‘CheckBoxLink’ applet in the list then right click and click the ‘view sample’ button. You now see a sample of this applet. If you want to see all the applets then click the ‘All applets page’ item in the ‘Applets samples’ menu item.

Let’s say you want to build the ‘CheckBoxLink’ applet. Double click the CheckBoxLink item in the list. You now view on the right the CheckBoxLink configurator. You are now in ‘Step 1: general properties’. First you have to enter the ‘Width’ and ‘Height’ of the applet. This will be the size of the applet on your Web page. Let’s take 200x100 : enter ‘200’ in the ‘Width’ field and ‘100’ in the ‘Height’ field. Next you have to choose the background color of the applet. Click on the color area and choose a color (default is black). For some applets you can also add a background image ; this image will be automatically centered. This parameter is not available for this applet. In the ‘No Java message’ you can set the text displayed when the visitor of your page has a navigator which does not support Java. Endly, you can add an ‘on load sound’ : this sound will be played when the applet starts, that is to say when the page is loaded in the Web browser. To add such a sound, click ‘Browse…’ and select a sound file on your hard drive. Note that the only format known by Java is files with the .au extension. You can find sounds samples in the ‘images&sounds’ directory where EAB has been installed. To get other AU files you can use the Wav2Au converter inside EAB (Click ‘Register | Wav2Au’). If you want this sound to be looped while the visitor is on the page then check ‘Loop’. 

You are now in ‘Step 2: mouse events’. Here you can set the on mouse over parameters, that is to say things that happen when the mouse is over the applet. You can add sounds, a status bar message, a message on mouse over or a link on click, depending on the applet you customize. First you can set the message which will be displayed in the status bar of the visitor Web browser, when the mouse is located over the applet. You can add a mouse over sound (not in the case of CheckBoxLink), or set a mouse over background color. If you want the background color of the applet to change when the mouse is over the applet then check ‘Enabled’ and set a color by clicking the color area. Next you can add a mouse over message : the message entered in the field will be displayed, centered, when the mouse is over the applet. The height of the message is the height you enter in the ‘Height’ field, the color is the one set in the color area. Select also the ‘text font name’ and the ‘text font style’. To enable the message display, check ‘Enabled’ (not available for CheckBoxLink). Endly you can set on click parameters : You can add an on click sound, which is played when the visitor clicks on the applet, and you can add an on click link (not available for CheckBoxLink), that is to say the browser will load another page, the page URL you have entered in the field. It can be something like ‘http://www.something.com’ or just a relative URL like ‘page.html’. If you add a link you have to set the target : the target can be ‘_self’ : the new page is loaded in the same frame ; ‘_blank’ : the browser will open a new window to load the linked page ; ‘_parent’ : the page will be loaded in the parent frame ; ‘_top’ : the page will be loaded in the top-most frame ; ‘name’ : the page will be loaded in the frame called ‘name’. 

You are now in ‘Step 3: specific parameters’. In this step you will find the specific parameters to an applet : Each applet has its own specific parameters. In the case of CheckBoxLink you have a field where you can enter a text and a field where you can enter an associated link. For instance, imagine you want to put a checkbox ‘Altavista’ in CheckBoxLink with the associated link ‘http://www.altavista.com’, then enter ‘Altavista’ in the ‘Text’ field, enter ‘http://www.altavista.com’ in the ‘Link’ field, check ‘Initially Checked’ if you want the checkbox to be initially checked and click on the ‘Add’ button. You can repeat the instructions above to add more texts and links. Then select the target in the list. You can remove texts and links. To do this, select in the textarea the text you want to remove then click ‘Remove’. When you are ready, click ‘Show preview’ and your default browser will load a page containing the applet you have built. If you are not satisfied, go back and change parameters. Make as many previews as you want, and click ‘HTML’ when the applet is ready. The ‘HTML and needed files’ window opens. In the text area stands the HTML code. In the list on the left you see the needed files. You can copy the HTML code in the Windows clipboard by clicking ‘Copy into clipboard’. Then paste the code in your HTML code, where you want the applet to stand. Here is an example of aHTML page in which I have paste the HTML code of the applet tag :

<html>
<head>
<title></title>
<head>
<body bgcolor="#000000">
<h1 align="center"><u><strong><font color="#FFFF00">CheckBoxLink preview</font></strong></u></h1>
<p><u><strong><font color="#FFFF00">&nbsp;</font></strong></u></p>
<p align="center">

<applet code="CheckBoxLink.class" WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="100">
<param name="generator" value="Easy Applet Builder - http://www.taijisoftware.com">
<param name="background_color" value="#00FF00">
<param name="registration_code" value="register to stop the popup on line">
<param name="status_bar_text" value="this is the status bar message">
<param name="clic_sound_name" value="gong.au">
<param name="text1" value="Altavista">
<param name="number" value="1">
<param name="link1" value="http://www.altavista.com">
<param name="target" value="_blank">
alt="Please activate Java...
</applet>

</p>
</body>
</html>

You can also save the HTML code as a text file by clicking ‘Save as text…’ or save the html preview page.
Once you have pasted the HTML code in your Web page, you need to copy the needed file(s). Click ‘Save needed files into…’ and all the needed files (applet, images and sounds files) will be copied in the selected directory.

Your applet is ready ! Now you have to upload all these files on your site and view the result on line !