How do you avoid screwing with other vendors' Plug-In requirements?

Question

I can control which plug-in my applet uses pretty easily by using the correct info within the HTML page that calls it.
What if another vendor, though, is not requesting a specific plug-in version in their html ... but uses the browser default instead?
When I upgrade my applet to another plug-in version and update my HTML to reference the new version, won't that change the browser's default at download/install time?
Is there a way that I can say:
1. Use this particular plug-in version.
2. If not found, install it -- but don't mark to set the new plug-in as any browser default?
3. If the install can be done silently, is their a silent method that works for Windows and Mac and for IE, Netscape, and Safari?
In other words for the same customer, if Vendor A needs plug-in 1.2, Vendor B needs plug-in 1.3, and I need plug-in 1.4, how can these all live happily together?
Is the only way to do this to make sure all vendors are using the same plug-in strategy?
Thanks.

Answer 1

Hi Swett,
for silent installation you can check out
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.1/docs/guide/plugin/developer_guide/silent.html
The method described there by default does not register the plugin to be the browser's default. I haven't actually tried silent install myself, though, and don't know on which systems it'll work.
Regarding other vendor's plugins: I'm afraid there's no guarantee you don't mess up anything. I guess that if everyone is using static plugin versions in their html then they can live next to each other without interfering, the problem comes into play if someone uses dynamic version control. That is what actually happened to me, having deployed an applet requiring jpi 1.3.1 or higher, and later had to find out that it didn't work for clients once they'd installed 1.4 on top of it :-(
In principle I would prefer dynamic version support since it minimizes the number of plugins clients have to install, but due to the ever changing plugin features (grrr...) static version support is probably the recommended way to go (if your customer finds that acceptable).
The lesson I had learned from that is that in the end each vendor and each customer is responsible to have a robust plugin/html deployment, and the client is responsible not to mess up his system (by e.g. having one plugin to be the browser's default) -- all you can do is offer your advice to both parties.
Cheers,
Gerret