How does Visaj licensing work?

 3

When I use Visaj with JDK1.2.* on Windows NT4.0, it performs poorly. How do I get around this?

How do I run native Unix/Windows binary from within a Java application?

How do I add items to a List or Choice component?

There are two types of Licensing for Visaj. These are described in the text file Licensing in the top level directory of the Visaj distribution. This file is also available in the docs directory as an html file - just point your browser at index.html in the docs directory.

The two types are:

1. Web Licensing (usually only used for evaluations)
2. Local Licensing

You can use web licensing from ANY machine that has an internet connection.

Local licensing involves getting a local license manager (wlmd) from the same download page from which you obtained Visaj. This would be:

You need to then run wlmd -u on the machine you want to use as a license server. This will give you a machine identifier which you need to send to license@ist-inc.com. A line will be returned to you containing an authorization code. This line needs to be put into a license file and wlmd run with this file as a parameter.

Visaj can then be run on any machine connected to (on the same network as) your license server simply by giving Visaj the name of the license server in the License Configuration dialog.

If you have any more questions about licensing please email license@ist-inc.com. If you have any technical questions about the product or have any problems using it please email support@ist-inc.com.

The file 'navajo.properties' contains all the licensing details entered by the user in the Authentication dialog.
We place this file in the directory returned by the Java Virtual Machine for 'user.home'. On Windows or Unix systems where the user is 'administrator' or 'root', Java may return the root directory.

Some problems that can occur during authentication, or starting up:

• May be down to interactions with the JIT compiler. Try switching off the JIT compiler by specifying a command line option such as:
  • -Djava.compiler=NONE
  • -Dnojit (or some other JDK specific option usually obtained from the documentation or from the command line help options).
  • In the case of JDK1.2.2 onwards there is the possibility that you may be using the HotSpot VM, if this is the case and you are experiencing intermittent problems, try launching with the classic VM, usually with an option such as -classic (or --classic on Unix machines.)
• Check to see if there are any exceptions being thrown or messages recorded in the visaj.log file (usually located in the user.home directory). Send the visaj.log along with your customer ID and full system configuration to support@ist-inc.com
• If you are using JDK1.2.2 on Linux please see here.

Xserver Bugs

A couple of Solaris Xserver bugs can cause crashes in some situations when using the Java 2 SDK on the Solaris 7 operating environment.

• When using the Solaris 7 operating environment, an Xserver crash can occur when accessing TrueType or Type1 fonts. This is similar to the Xserver bug fixed by patches 105633 (SPARCTM Platform Edition) and 106248 (x86) on Solaris 2.6. A patch for Solaris 7 is forthcoming. (Solaris Xserver bug 4215548)
  
• GUI applications which use dgalib on Solaris 7 (SPARC Platform Edition) can crash the Xserver. Patch 107078-07 will fix this problem. This patch is currently available only with a SunSpectrum service contract. (Solaris Xserver bug 4198669)
  

This appears to be a problem that has been introduced with the advent of Java 2/JDK1.2+. There appear to have been a few performance issues related to graphics and font rendering in JDK1.2+/Java 2. Unfortunately some system configurations appear to be more susceptible to these effects than others. Some suggestions on how you may improve the situation are mentioned below.

• Plus! Display Setting Options:
  There are two Display Setting options that have been found to have an impact on the performance of Visaj under these circumstances. These are listed below, and should be switched off using the appropriate check boxes.
  
  • Show Window Contents While Dragging
  • Smooth the Edges of Screen Fonts
• Screen Resolution:
  It is suggested that, if at all possible, a screen resolution of around 1024x768 (or lowest convenient) should be used.
• Colour Depth:
  Setting a colour depth of 16bit (16 Million Colours) is preferable over higher colour depth settings.
• Alternate JDK/Swing Combination:
  An alternative would be to use a 1.1.x JDK in conjunction with a 1.1.x version of Swing with Visaj. This configuration can provide a more stable platform for creating your designs and the code generated from this Java/Swing combination should be compatible with JDK1.2/Java2.
  (Note: If you want to place beans on the palette that contain JDK1.2 specific code, this combination would not be ideal.)
  

When attempting to run Visaj on a system using JDK1.2 across a network, a dramatic performance degradation may be encountered.

There is an option that visaj can pass to the JDK that may help with this. Visaj can be run with the following option:

  visaj -Djava2d.font.usePlatformFont=true

This still works with the current release of JDK1.2.2, but is likely to be removed in the next major release.

Using Solaris 2.6/2.7 with JDK1.2.x the properties sheet doesn't update correctly. How do I get around this?

When using HP-UX JDK1.1.x I receive a serialization exception when trying to save.

The problem occurs when "MenuItem.setLabel" is used, this in turn causes MMenuItemPeer to call "MenuItem.getShortCut()" which is NULL by default, and then goes on to call "toString()" on the returned value (NULL) - hence a NullPointerException (this should be visible in the visaj.log file).

You should be able to find this issue documented at: http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/bugParade/bugs/4234266.html

To fix the problem copy the tar archive visaj_linux_patch.tar to the root of your Visaj installation, extract it with 'tar xf' and then restart Visaj.

There are a number of tutorials available on the Internet on how to create your own JavaBeans. Javasoft maintains 2 short courses on Bean creation and are well worth a visit:

Using Visaj, you could try the following:

A JavaBean itself is very simple. As long as your class follows the rules below, everything should work ok:

1. The Class must be public. 
2. The Class must provide a default constructor, e.g. public MyClass()

       META-INF/
           META-INF/MANIFEST.MF 
           MyClass.class 

        Name: MyClass.class
	Java-Bean: True

        jar cvfm myjar.jar META-INF/MANIFEST.MF *

        jar cvmf META-INF/MANIFEST.MF myjar.jar *

This is achieved by using the exec() method, found in class java.lang.Runtime.

A Windows example of this:

           import java.io.IOException; 

               public static void main(String []args) { 
                   try { 
                       java.lang.Runtime.getRuntime().exec("notepad.exe"); 
                       } catch (IOException e) { 
                            e.printStackTrace(); 
                       } 
               } 
           } 

A Unix example of this:

           import java.io.IOException; 

           public class RunEmacs { 
                public static void main(String []args) { 
                    try { 
                        java.lang.Runtime.getRuntime().exec("emacs"); 
                        } catch (IOException e) { 
                             e.printStackTrace(); 
                        } 
                } 
           } 

What are the problems with mixing Swing and AWT components

There are special rules and conditions that must be observed if you are planning on mixing AWT and Swing components. For a look at some of the areas to be aware of, follow the below URL:

http://java.sun.com/products/jfc/tsc/archive/tech_topics_arch/mixing/mixing.html

 
	visaj --classic -Dvj.useSwing=true -Djava2d.font.usePlatformFont=true 

 
	 -Dvj.AWTPalette.file= <Path to palette file> 
   

 
         -Dvj.menuFont= <Font definition> 
   

 
         -Dvj.windowFont= <Font definition> 
   

 
         -Dvj.beanDesignTime= <true/false> 
   

 
         -Dvj.tmpDir= <Path to temp directory> 
   

 
         -Dvj.convertPackages=true 
   

 
         -DDTColors 
   

 
         -Dvj.useSwing= <true/false> 
   

 
         -Dvj.propertyEditorSearchPath= <Search Path> 
   

 
         -Dvj.beanInfoSearchPath= <Search Path> 
   

 
        -Dvj.variablesDefaultToInstanceVars= <true/false> 
   

 
        -Djava.compiler=NONE 
   

When I try to integrate Visaj with Java WorkShop 3.0.x it doesn't work, why is this?

On attempting to follow the instructions for integrating Visaj with Java WorkShop 2.0 whilst using Java WorkShop 3.0.x, you will probably receive the following error:

 
        java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: sun/jws/env/PlugInBase 
    

This most likely cause of this problem is Fonts. When saving a design, all properties are Serialized. In JDK1.2 the structure of the Font class has drastically changed, so when loading a design which contains a JDK1.2 Font into Visaj running on JDK1.1.6, JDK1.1.6 has trouble reading the Font and prevents Visaj from loading that file.

So far the only work around we have for this, is to remove all specified fonts from your JDK1.2 design, save, and then reload using Visaj on JDK1.1.6.

We are working very hard to fix this problem. However, it is possible that other such incompatibilities exist, and, if one is found, we would greatly appreciate any information you may have. Please contact support@ist-inc.com if you find such a problem.

To add items to a List or Choice component:

1. Highlight the component
2. Select "Customize..." from the Object menu.

A window will appear, and you will be able to add and remove items as you wish.

If you are using the Swing ImageIcon Resource or Image Resource options in the PropertySheet, there are two different fields:

1. Design-Time file
2. Runtime resource path

If you leave the "Design-Time file" field blank then the image will not be loaded into Visaj, but the correct code will be generated.