Class not found. Or: THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS APPLETS

Question

Okay, the problem I�m having seems to be somewhat widespread judging from the forum achieves, but I wasn�t able to find any answers that worked for me. So forgive me if I�m treading old ground, but asking explicitly is my one last attempt to learn what�s going on.
The problem is the �load: class <someclass.class> not found� gray screen whenever I try to view an applet. Now, looking around online, there are a few applets that I�ve been able to access, and many I haven�t; I�m not certain what causes some to work fine and others to gray screen, but there doesn�t seem to be a pattern to it other than the fact that if I can or can�t view one applet at a site, the same is generally true for all the other applets there as well.
Now, as for local applets on my computer, I can�t view any of them. Not examples that come with the SDK, none that I�ve compiled myself, and none that I�ve downloaded. Needless to say, in my exasperation I�ve run through every possible permutation of html code for class and classpath and so on trying to modify code into working, but to no avail.
Now, in the appletviewer, and in an IDE called RealJ, I can run applets just fine. It�s just those embedded in web pages that seem to give me trouble.
I�ve uninstalled and reinstalled j2sdk 1.4.1. I�m running IE 6.0. Windows 98SE. In my Internet options, I have under Java (Sun) the �Use Java 2 v1.4.1 for applet� box checked, and under Java VM the �Java console enabled� and �JIT Compiler� boxes checked, though I have also gone through every permutation possible here, again, to no avail.
Any idea what I can change so that I can start running applets with ease?
Thanks in advance, I desperately appreciate whatever suggestions you can give.
Travis

Answer 1

gray screen whenever I try to view an applet.
Now, looking around online, there are a few applets
that I�ve been able to access, and many I haven�t; Basically it is partly your browser and partly the version of the jdk /sdk that you are viewing. Generally, IE does not support swing ie JApplet, JButton, JTextArea etc... which is a shame cos it has some pretty neat features - I particularly like the flexibility with textfields and textAreas - and my favourite: imageIcon, allows you to have the sexiest looking buttons in the known universe. For reasons like this, people who like to write Applets like to use swing ... and people who like Sun don't like windoze and IE and the like (and they definitely hate each other). So, if you change your browser to Netscape or Opera - you will see swinging applets galore.
Shame really on a practical level, as the last survey I saw gave IE a 85 - 90 % share of the browser market. A bigger shame, when it seems to be deliberate that m-$oft do not include the latest JVM in their browser, yet they have the latest Flash plug-in. Both are in fact a good idea.
Any idea what I can change so that I can start running
applets with ease? Don't use swing and get a copy of something like jdk1.1.5 or even 1.1.2, if it compiles OK with this then it should be OK, keep it simple - as applets download on the client-side and can be unreliable and erratic so try and avoid images. Generally though Applets are a little bit out of vogue at the moment.