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Trail: Deployment
Lesson: Applets
Section: Practical Considerations When Writing Applets
Subsection: Creating a User Interface
Applets
Getting Started with Applets
Importing Classes and Packages for Applets
Defining an Applet Subclass
The Life Cycle of an Applet
Methods for Milestones
Methods for Drawing and Event Handling
Methods for Adding UI Components
What Applets Can and Can't Do
Taking Advantage of the Applet API
Finding and Loading Data Files
Displaying Short Status Strings
Displaying Documents in the Browser
Sending Messages to Other Applets
Playing Sounds
Defining and Using Applet Parameters
Deciding Which Parameters to Support
Writing the Code to Support Parameters
Giving Information about Parameters
Using the APPLET Tag
Practical Considerations When Writing Applets
Security Restrictions
Creating a User Interface
Creating a GUI
Displaying Diagnostics to the Standard Output and Error Streams
Getting System Properties
Threads in Applets
Threads in Applets: Examples
Working with a Server-Side Application
A Simple Network Client Applet
Using a Server to Work Around Security Restrictions
Finishing an Applet
Before You Ship that Applet
The Perfectly Finished Applet
Deploying Applets
General Deployment Considerations
Using the applet Tag
Using the object Tag
Using the embed Tag
Deploying Applets in a Mixed-Browser Environment
Solving Common Applet Problems
Questions and Exercises
Home Page > Deployment > Applets
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Displaying Diagnostics to the Standard Output and Error Streams

> Displaying diagnostics to the standard output can be an invaluable tool when you're debugging an applet. Another time you'll see messages at the standard output is when an uncaught exception occurs in an applet. Applets also have the option of using the standard error stream.

> Where exactly the standard output and error are displayed varies, depending on how the applet's viewer is implemented, what platform it's running on, and (sometimes) how you launch the browser or applet viewer. When you launch the Applet Viewer from a UNIX shell window, for example, strings displayed to the standard output and error appear in that shell window, unless you redirect the output. When you launch the Applet Viewer from an X Windows menu, the standard output and error go to the console window.

> Applets display to the standard output stream using `System.out.print(String)` and `System.out.println(String)`. Displaying to the standard error stream is similar; just specify `System.err` instead of `System.out`. Here's an example of displaying to the standard output:

> >     //Where instance variables are declared:
> >     boolean DEBUG = true;
> >     . . .
> >     //Later, when we want to print some status:
> >     if (DEBUG) {
> >         System.out.println("Called someMethod(" + x + "," + y + ")");
> >     }

> > Note: Displaying to the standard output and error streams is relatively slow. If you have a timing-related problem, printing messages to either of these streams might not be helpful.

> You should be sure to disable all debugging output before you release your applet.

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