Is there a way to know if the program is an applet?

Question

Hi all,
I'm developping a Swing project that can be run or not as an applet. Some of my components need to know in which mode the program is running, since some workarounds are necessary to avoid a few swing bugs.
Of course I can ask the main frame if it is an applet or not, but I have written some generic components that do not have any reference to it.
Any ideas?

Answer 1

Hi,
IMHO testing for an instance of Applet will not solve the problem because it seems that godbert has an (J)Applet including a main method which can be started as application and as applet.
One solution for solving the problem could be to store at startup if the program was started as applet or application. Storing this in the system properties makes it available for other components, too.
class MyApplet extends JApplet {
  static {
    System.setProperty( "startedAsApplet", Boolean.TRUE.toString() );
  private boolean isStartedAsApplet() {
    return ( Boolean.getBoolean( "startedAsApplet" ) );
  private void setStartedAsApplet( boolean startedAsApplet ) {
    System.setProperty( "startedAsApplet", new Boolean( startedAsApplet ).toString() );
  public void startLikeApplet() {
    setStartedAsApplet( false );
    init();
    start();
    stop();
  public static void main( String[] args ) {
    MyApplet myA = new MyApplet();
    myA.startLikeApplet();
}Hope that helps,
Alex