NineChime forum

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?

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.

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.