Can't get jsp:plugin to work with jb5

Question

I am trying to get a Swing applet compiled with JDK 1.3.1 to run on a jsp page using the <jsp:plugin> tag. At this stage it is a ridiculously simple applet (just some JLabels and JTextFields) but I can't get it to work. Here is the jsp code:
<jsp:plugin type="applet" code="nz.astarte.ganttapplet.GanttApplet"
codebase="./WEB-INF/classes" jreversion="1.3.1"
width="400" height="175">
<jsp:fallback>
Plugin support could not be determined
</jsp:fallback>
</jsp:plugin>
When I run it in the jb5 ide nothing shows up at all. OK, I figured the ide doesn't support the plugin, so leaving the ide running (which provides me with a web server) I go into IE (version 5) and enter the url to the page, which is http://localhost:8080/AppletCommunications/GanttApplet.jsp
I get the page, and the gray box saying loading the applet but the plugin console tells me:
load: class nz.astarte.ganttapplet.GanttApplet not found.
java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: java.io.FileNotFoundException: http://localhost:8080/AppletCommunications/WEB-INF/classes/nz/astarte/ganttapplet/GanttApplet.class
Why not? Under the directory where the jsp page is located is the directory structure WEB-INF/classes/nz/astarte/ganttapplet and in that directory is a GanttApplet.class file.
I cannot understand why it isn't found. Do applets work with the jb5 ide? Is there something blindingly obvious that I've missed?
Thanks, Andrew

Answer 1

I appear to have solved it, but it is not clear to me why.
I created a jar file of the required classes, and placed it in the same directory as the jsp file. My jsp code then looked like:
<jsp:plugin type="applet" code="nz.astarte.ganttapplet.GanttApplet"
codebase="."
archive="GanttApplet.jar"
jreversion="1.3.1"
width="400" height="175">
<jsp:fallback>
Plugin support could not be determined
</jsp:fallback>
</jsp:plugin>
This works fine. However I would expect to be able to move the jar file to some other directory, so that the jar file and jsp files are separated. I spent hours trying to work out why it wouldn't work when I had the jar
file in WEB-INF/classes (under the jsp file directory) and had codebase="WEB-INF/classes/". In the end I put the jar file into a directory I defined separately called wotnot and defined codebase="wotnot/"
Now it works. However I still think I should be able to have the jar file anywhere, including WEB-INF/classes and would love for someone to tell me why not!
Thanks, Andrew