Categories
Uncategorized

Java Web Start / JNLP maker

A few years ago I wrote a web-service that would automatically create JNLP files, making it much easier to deploy java applications. They’re just XML files, but they have some very odd syntactical quirks and can be a pain in the ass to get working correctly. This post has an early alpha version that works as a downloadable application you can run from your desktop.

I kept hoping someone would get around to making a simple, easy to use, desktop equivalent. But it didn’t seem to happen, so today I was browsing through the code and decided I’d convert it to a desktop version, and give it away. So, here it is: a program that lets you specify all the config for your java web start application and then creates a JNLP for you automatically.

You need ALL the attached jars, download them into the same directory. Then run jnlpcreator-bin.jar

NB: this is a work-in-progress – the Save and Test buttons don’t do anything yet, but you can get a lot of the functionality just by using the Preview button and copy/pasting out of the window that it pops up.

NB2: for some reason, teh popup window doesn’t popup on OS X. I have no idea why.

NB3: there are still some old references to the original hardcoded paths in the codebase and href at top of the JNLP; you’lll need to manually correct those for now, but next version I’ll replace them with some clever uto-generated stuff.

Files to download (you need ALL of them):

  1. jnlpcreator-bin
  2. log4j
  3. tmachine-basics

4 replies on “Java Web Start / JNLP maker”

I found this blog post. I would like to try your app. However the links you provided are not valid anymore. Can you repost the links?

Regards
Fernando

Ugh, sorry – it got deleted when the blog server died. I’ll see if I can find a copy on my laptop and re-upload it.

Hi, I also stumbled upon the JNLP creator and checked it out.

Reason why I looked for a creator was because I can’t seem to auto-create a shorcut when my JNLP initializes (menu bar and desktop icon).

I was hoping if your creator could support this feature.

Thanks!

Comments are closed.