The first archive you will want to build is
the ZIP archive. ZIP is the oldest, and hence most supported format
of the three so it should be easy for you to find a ZIP archive
generation program for whatever platform you are working with. When
choosing a ZIP utility program however, you should be careful to
choose one that support non-8.3 filenames since Java class files
usually have names which are longer.
I recommend the popular Shareware product
WinZip 95 which is available for easy download at
http://www.shareware.com. Regardless, every ZIP utility should have
a similar interface and options so if you are not using a Windows
box, you can still get the basic idea from the following
discussion.
The first step in creating a ZIP archive is
to gather all of the class and supporting files necessary to execute
your applet into the package structure defined in your Java code.
This should be fairly simple since in order to compile your Java
files, you should have created a directory structure mirroring your
package structure on your local machine.
Once you have prepared your Java files to
be archived, you should drag the top-level directory into
WinZip.
You can also use your right mouse button to
click on the MyApplet directory in Windows Explorer and choose "Add
to Zip" from the popup menu
When you submit the top-level directory to
WinZip, the "Drag and Drop Dialog" should appear and give you
several options for archiving. For the most part, the archiving
options should be fairly straight forward, but we will present a
laundry list for your convenience here. The options should be set as
follows:
Select a name for your ZIP archive using
the "Add to Archive" Text Field.
Set the level of compression to "none"
using the "Compression" Drop Down.
Instruct WinZip to archive all files and
all files within directories by toggling the "Recursive Folders"
check box in the "Folders" Group.
Once you have set the options, hit the
"Add" button and let WinZip do its magic. In a few moments, WinZip
will finish archiving your applet. Make sure it recursively adds
the directory structure
However, you are not quite done yet.
Actually, there are several files in the archive that do not need to
be there. For example, the .html, all of the .java files, and all of
the .txt files. After all, the web browser only needs the class
files, and images to execute. Thus, the final step in preparing the
ZIP archive is to delete all of the extraneous files using the
"Actions | Delete" choice from WinZip's menu.
When you have deleted extraneous files, you
can then upload your ZIP archive to your web server and make it
available to web browsers using the ARCHIVE attribute such as in the
following example:
Notice that you must still reference the
base class in the CODE attribute even though it is contained in the
ZIP file. After all, the web browser must still know where to begin.
More importantly, browsers that cannot read ZIP files must still
have access to the value of CODE.
