Features/F15IcedTeaWeb
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IcedTea-Web 1.0.2
Summary
This feature adds IcedTea-Web 1.0.2 to Fedora. The IcedTea-Web project provides a Free Software web browser plugin running applets written in the Java programming language and an implementation of Java Web Start, originally based on the NetX project.
Owner
- Name: Deepak Bhole
- Email: dbhole@redhat.com
Current status
- Targeted release: Fedora 15
- Last updated: 2011-04-11
- Percentage of completion: 100%
Detailed Description
Previously, the Java plugin and Web Start implementations shipped in Fedora were build with the java-1.6.0-openjdk RPM as the development for those items happened in the IcedTea tree. Starting with IcedTea6 1.10 (which is in Fedora 15), the plugin and Web Start components were split into a separate project named IcedTea-Web. IcedTea-Web brings numerous functional improvements to the Java plugin and Web Start implementations in Fedora.
Benefit to Fedora
IcedTea-Web provides numerous improvements over the previous plugin and Web Start implementations shipped in Fedora. These include:
- NetX and plugin configuration can now be specified via a deployment.properties file
- System-level as well as user-level deployment.properties files with locked configuration are supported
- Applications and applets can now have a Look and Feel different from rest of IcedTea-Web
- Native directories are correctly cleaned on exit
- Cached files with special characters in file names are now handled correctly
- Interfaces javax.jnlp.IntegrationService and javax.jnlp.DownloadService2 are now available
- javaws now supports a new -Xclearcache option
- Applications with non-public main classes are now supported.
- JNLP files containing <component-desc> as well as <application-desc> will now work
- JNLP files referenced in the applet tag are now parsed to detect applet properties
- Applets are now double-buffered to eliminate flicker in ones that do heavy drawing
Furthermore, because the package no longer requires a JDK rpm respin, bug fixes will be available much sooner starting with F15.
Scope
The goal of IcedTea-Web is to allow faster distribution of fixes to end-user. The fast-turnaround goal also means that the project is a lot simpler to build. It involves simply checking out the sources from the mercurial repository at http://icedtea.classpath.org/hg/ and running configure, make and make install.
How To Test
Once the RPM is built, testing simply involves installing the icedtea-web RPM. Users with the older java-1.6.0-openjdk-plugin RPM installed will automatically get icedtea-web via yum update as it virtual provides java-1.6.0-openjdk-plugin.
- Once installed, verify that it is the default plugin by running (as root):
alternatives --config libjavaplugin.so[.x86_64]
- Once set, open firefox and go to about:plugins (by typing it in the address bar and hitting enter). It should display something like:
"IcedTea-Web Plugin ..." as one of the entries.
- Functionality can be verified by going to an applet test site like this one.
User Experience
The user experience will be largely unchanged apart from the fact the the plugin and Web Start performance will be better.
Dependencies
No RPMS depend on icedtea-web. IcedTea-Web does not require any additional RPMS outside of what java-1.6.0-openjdk required before when it built the plugin.
Contingency Plan
If icedtea-web cannot be added in time, we can fall back to IcedTea6 1.9.7 for the immediate future, as it includes the plugin.
Documentation
- The wiki page for IcedTea-Web is located here
Release Notes
- There is a fedora beats note about it here
Comments and Discussion
- See Talk:Features/F15IcedTeaWeb
- Package review: BZ691541
- Package build: http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=237494
- Package update (already in stable): https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/icedtea-web-1.0.2-2.fc15
