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Topic review (newest first)

Waccoon
12-19-2014 06:10:53

Java 7 update 51 is the version that first started blocking applets, so you'll need a version of Java older than that.  Not all updates of Java 7 will work.

If it makes things easier, you can read "Java 7 update 51" as "version 7.51".

I know Java 7 still works on Firefox, but I don't know if the browser blocks updates less than 51.  You should be able to use an old version of Java, but Firefox will complain about it an you'll have to click through a number of warnings before the browser will actually allow you to start Java.  I don't have any issue running Java 7 update 2 with the latest version of Firefox, so I can't offer any immediate help.  Perhaps Java 8 didn't uninstall properly before you installed Java 7?

Tiger
12-18-2014 11:43:55

How would I go about installing an older version of Java that will run the applets? PaintBBS won't run for me unless it's Java 8. I'm able to get the applet running but get the socket error mentioned in the OP (mine is "198.91.81.5:80"). I use the latest version of Firefox.

Waccoon
11-11-2014 03:14:03

I believe it was Firefox 3.x that had issues with Java, and it was fixed after a year or so.  The relationship between the various browsers and Java has always been a bit complicated.

I've used Java 6 and Java 7 extensively, and both work just fine with the old applets.  Having decompiled PaintBBS and most of ShiPainter, the applets are actually quite simple internally and don't use any advanced Java features.  It doesn't surprise me that they've worked fine for so many years.

Java has had some problems, but it's not really any different than all the other technology we use.  The real problem is that Java just isn't popular enough to save, unlike Flash.

Oracle has made an official statement that older versions of Java will be removed from their web site once they are no longer supported.  This is different than their old policy, which was to maintain an archive of old versions.  Oracle seems pretty serious about killing Java 6 and eventually Java 7.

You can change Java's security policy by editing the "java.policy" file in the Java install folder.  On my machine, that file is in "C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.8.0_25\lib\security\".  There's a few policies in that file for you to go by, but there's shockingly little documentation on how to edit the policy file or manually edit the exceptions list.  I see a lot of people asking questions about policies on various Java forums, but few people have any answers.  Apparently, the official policy on how to deal with applet development is, "don't even bother".  WTF?

I'm still trying to figure out how to run applets locally.  With Java 7, I had to modify my policy file to enable file access so the applets could read the brush and language files.  With Java 8, I have to add a specific path in the exception list in the form of a FILE URL, but I can't get that to work.  Again, there's not documentation as to the particular path format Java wants, as "proper" URLs don't work.  I'm really annoyed that I can't even run my own applets on my own machine, let alone the oekaki applets over the web!

Thanks, Oracle.

rainbow
11-06-2014 23:43:24

Thank you very much for telling me.

As far as I know, I was able to test PaintBBS in Java 4 when running on Firefox 1.5 and it worked without problems. I haven't had the time to test PaintBBS and ChibiPaint on Java 6 (which remains on Extended Support until December 2016) at this time and I presume.

Considering that Java is a security risk in Firefox and Chrome, the browser makers may eventually drop Java support as blocking older versions of Java is slowly not working anymore and it will be devastating for anyone who use oekaki and Java as a whole.

By the way, how can enabling Socket 80 in the Java policy file possible? If users find that they don't want to install the latest version of Java, they can always install a legacy version (either Java 6 or Java 7) on top of the current version of Java installed.

Waccoon
11-02-2014 05:12:37

For anyone else interested, I've been working on this for the last week on both my own and Rainbow's oekaki.

Long story short, it doesn't look like there's a way around this other than adding individual sites to the Java exception list.  Enabling socket 80 correctly might be possible with an alteration of your Java policy file, but that's a bit complicated and probably won't work reliably (Firefox has had many issues with SocketPermission errors in the past, way before the release of Java 8).

I still stand pretty firm behind my belief that oekaki is quickly dying, and will likely not be possible at all as Chrome and Firefox will likely drop support for Java altogether within a couple years.  I'm stepping up my efforts to commission an HTML5 clone of the applets, but so far no developers have fulfilled any promises.

Wacintaki will continue to be supported for the foreseeable future if bugs and compatibility issues arise.  New features are unlikely until replacements for the Java applets are viable.

rainbow
10-23-2014 20:04:45

Hey there, Wac. It's been a while since I posted in the NineChime forums. Before I go on to this issue, if users want to draw on oekakies using Java 8u20 and higher, the only way to allow Java access is to do the following:

1. Go to Control Panel, select Java and make sure Java content is enabled in your browser.
2. Go to Security and add the URL link to the oekaki URL link to your Exception List.

If you don't, you'll end up with a application that has been blocked by Java Security.

Now, I have issues using Normal, Palette or Animated PaintBBS and ChibiPaint when I have added my site to the Exception List. When I attempt to save images under PaintBBS or ChibiPaint, I receive this error message:

Error while sending the oekaki...access denied ("java.net.SocketPermission" "198.57.149.32:80" "connect,resolve")

I'm suspecting that this has to do with the way how PaintBBS and ChibiPaint save images using paintbbsget.php and chibipaintget.php.

Is there a way to fix this error? PaintBBS and ChibiPaint both work fine under older versions of Java without any problems.

By the way, I have neglected to update my oekaki in about two years now.

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