JDK-6483092 : CD installs enhancements
  • Type: Enhancement
  • Component: deploy
  • Sub-Component: webstart
  • Affected Version: 6,7
  • Priority: P3
  • Status: Resolved
  • Resolution: Won't Fix
  • OS: generic,windows_xp
  • CPU: generic,x86
  • Submitted: 2006-10-17
  • Updated: 2014-08-04
  • Resolved: 2014-08-04
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Description
The current CD installation mechanism in Java Web Start unfortunately misses the point and is effectively useless for end users. It is currently phrased as a command-line option to Java Web Start which causes the cache to be populated with the contents of the target JNLP file. The simple fact that it requires a new command line option to be passed defeats the purpose of the mechanism. JNLP files are supposed to be platform-independent and the high-level approach of CD installation should be double-clicking a JNLP file. With the current CD installation mechanism in JWS, it would be necessary for developers to write wrapper shell scripts or batch files to manually invoke javaws.

The CD installation mechanism should probably be phrased as a new tag in the JNLP file, perhaps <cd-install> or similar. A mechanism for "including" another JNLP file should be added. This way only one small wrapper CD installation JNLP file can be written which: (1) passes the <cd-install> tag to Java Web Start to change its behavior, and (2) references an on-disk, unmodified copy of the same JNLP file which is hosted on some web server somewhere (for updates). The codebase of the latter JNLP file will be ignored by JWS in similar fashion to how the CD installation mechanism works today and the root on-disk codebase will be picked up by the fact that Java Web Start knows the on-disk location of the starting CD installation JNLP file.