JRSST Applets

JRSST has an applet you can embed in html pages. Here's a demonstration whose html is:

<html>
<head>
<title>JRSST applet</title>
</head>
<body>
<applet
    codebase    = "http://emess.mscd.edu/~beaty/"
    archive     = "JRSST-1.9.0.signed.jar"
    code        = "edu.mscd.cs.jrsstlabel.JRSSTLabelApplet.class"
    width=      400
    height=     20
>
</applet>
</body>
</html>

You'll have to trust me when the verification window pops up -- something you can do in this case. You'll now have a running JRSST applet on the page. You can add parameters for which sites to display by passing a parameter named "args":

<html>
<head>
<title>JRSST applet</title>
</head>
<body>
<applet
    codebase	= "http://emess.mscd.edu/~beaty/"
    archive	= "JRSST-1.9.0.signed.jar"
    code	= "edu.mscd.cs.jrsstlabel.JRSSTLabelApplet.class"
    width=	400
    height=	20
>
   <param name="args" value="http://www.nws.noaa.gov/data/current_obs/KDEN.rss http://rss.cnn.com/rss/cnn_topstories.rss">
</applet>
</body>
</html>

The applet doesn't really need all the permissions it gets by default. Indeed, in the demo mode, this policy file is sufficient:

grant codeBase "http://emess.mscd.edu/~beaty/" {
  permission java.util.PropertyPermission "java.net.preferIPv4Stack", "write";
  permission java.util.PropertyPermission "http.agent", "write";
  permission java.lang.reflect.ReflectPermission "suppressAccessChecks";
  permission java.net.SocketPermission "newsrss.bbc.co.uk:80","connect,resolve";
  permission java.net.SocketPermission "news.bbc.co.uk", "resolve";
};

If you're uncomfortable granting the applet all permissions, and i might be, add this rule to your home directory's .java.policy file and restart your browser. Then you won't need to trust the applet and you know exactly what it will be doing. I'd like to be able to associate a policy with an applet tag or with a jar file, but that doesn't seem possible...

Here's the Java Web Start specification:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<jnlp spec="1.0+" codebase="http://emess.mscd.edu/~beaty/">
    <information>
        <title>JRSST: A Java RSS and Atom Ticker/Aggregator/Reader</title>
        <description>>Demonstration of JRSST</description>
	<vendor>Steve Beaty</vendor>
    </information>
    <security>
        <all-permissions/>
    </security>
    <resources>
        <j2se version="1.2+" />
        <jar href="JRSST-VERSOIN.signed.jar"/>
    </resources>
    <application-desc main-class="JRSST"/>
</jnlp>