AniDB Java Applet?

Post by **exp** » Sat Nov 13, 2004 9:04 am

Well,

someone suggested this in the feature request forum.
I think this might be quite interesting.

An AniDB Java Applet which allows to:
- hash local files
- add them to mylist
- rename them

Is anyone interested in working on something like that?

BYe!
EXP

DonGato · Post by **DonGato** » Sat Nov 13, 2004 12:08 pm

Ufff... I would like to start working on Java again, but don't remember a single thing of it.

Will see if someone can help me... but don't expect any results from me.

Elberet · Post by **Elberet** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 1:22 am

The one big problem with this is that the applet needs extended privileges to break out of the VM and read files on the user's harddisk, and no browser - not even IE - will allow it to do that unless you obtain a code signing certificate and sign the applet.

DonGato · Post by **DonGato** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 1:37 am

Not even setting the site as an exception (secure site)?

Some research at Google brought this but I will do some more tomorrow...
http://www.tek271.com/articles/java_2_a ... curity.htm

Elberet · Post by **Elberet** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 1:45 am

Even if that's possible...
Would you honestly permanently grant a Java Applet read-access to your filesystem? As it stands, the .java.policy mechanism can assign different policies based on an applet's codebase, but still.

Furcube · Post by **Furcube** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 4:36 pm

maybe rewriting AOM to Java would be better?

DonGato · Post by **DonGato** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 5:10 pm

It seems the only path is signing and that would be troublesome as for Java there are like three ways of signing the applet regarding the VM and the browser.

The idea was nice... but I think now not good enough.

Elberet · Post by **Elberet** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 6:12 pm

Well, one possibility would be to develop an AniDB-hashing-tool as a Java application, but it'd have to run outside of the browser and as such requires the j2re to be installed separately.

Version conflicts and additional downloads will definately make this not worth the effort, tho.

DonGato · Post by **DonGato** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 6:30 pm

If it's just for that something like an AoM lite could be used (made in plain simple C++), but I think is not what we thought to be useful at the thread that originated this.

Elberet · Post by **Elberet** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 7:17 pm

Yeah, figures.
However, a JAR would still be platform independent......

Website · Post by **Rar** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 8:15 pm

Can't the small(?) proportion of non-windows users just use a windows emulator? *Risks looking like an idiot again* Or JAR is good. If someone has a lot of free time for code rewriting.

Rar

Post by **exp** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 9:26 pm

well,

i am aware that users would need to install the sun jre manually to get a decent java vm plugin for their browser.
if we make that a requirement (the user having the sun jre 1.4/1.5 java plugin installed) it should be doable without larger version conflicts.
and well, if someone want's to use the applet he should be willing to give full filesystem access to it (after all AoM has that too).

BYe!
EXP

nich · Post by **nich** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 9:27 pm

Rar wrote:Can't the small(?) proportion of non-windows users just use a windows emulator?[...]

I wouldn't mind if I could. But wine doesn't run aom (yet! PetriW said 0.6 should be much more wine friendly

). And I'm not willing to use WMware.

XUL would be a nice partly platform independent way of doing things, imo. (Partly because for hashing/math heavy things it would be better to have a C/C++ part. Anyway, I think that part would be considerably easier to port than if it were a full C/C++ app.) I'm not willing to try it for now, though. Gave it a look and it seems simple, but requires some time to learn.

Elberet · Post by **Elberet** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 10:12 pm

exp wrote:and well, if someone want's to use the applet he should be willing to give full filesystem access to it (after all AoM has that too).

The problem is, you can't give the access to that applet, but only to it's codebase. If the applet on AniDB is modified - be the new version authentic or not -, it will have the same privileges. As far as I am concerned, I would rather not do that. If I'm going to trust something so much that I give it access to my system, I want to at least be sure that it doesn't get changed all of a sudden which means that the applet either needs to have a digital signature and fingerprint or that I can download a copy to my computer.

DonGato · Post by **DonGato** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 10:14 pm

We're talking about a small app here. Not AoM replacement.
exp, the problem is that it has to be signed (you need a certificate for that and it's $$$). And another problem is that we need to take in account the browser he is using as it seems it's different for each one.