I can't use swing components in my applets

Question

When I write an applet without any swing components, my browser never has any trouble finding the classes it needs, whether they're classes I've written or classes that came with Java. However, when I try to use swing components it cannot find them, because it is looking in the wrong place:
On my computer I have a directory called C:\Java, into which I installed my Java Development Kit (so Sun's classes are stored in the default location within that directory, wherever that is), and I store my classes in C:\Java\Files\[path depends on package]. My browser gives an error message along the lines of "Cannot find class JFrame at C:\Java\Files\javax\swing\JFrame.class"; it shouldn't be looking for this non-existent directory, it should find the swing components where it finds, for example, the Applet class and the Graphics class.
Is there any way I can set the classpath on my browser? Are the swing components stored separately from other classes (I'm using the J2SE v1.3)?
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Without having complete information, it appears that you are running your applets using the browser's VM. Further, I assume you are using either IE or Netscape Navigator pre-v6. In that case, your browser only supports Java 1.1, and Swing was implemented in Java 1.2. You need to use the Java plug-in in order to use the Swing classes (see the Plug-in forum for more information), or else download the Swing classes from Sun and include them in your CLASSPATH.
HTH,
Carl Rapson