Combining an Applet's Files into a Single File

[sukishan]

If your applet has more than one file, you should consider providing an archive file that bundles the applet's files into a single file. Whether archive files make sense for your applet depends on several factors, including your applet's size, performance considerations, and the environment you expect your users to have.
Archive files reduce your applet's total download time. Much of the time saved comes from reducing the number of HTTP connections that the browser must make. Each HTTP connection can take several seconds to start. This means that for a multifile applet, connection time can dwarf transfer time. You can further reduce transfer time by compressing the files in your archive file.

If you specify one or more archive files, then the applet class loader looks for the archive files in the same directory that it would search for the applet class file. The applet class loader then looks for the applet's class files in the archive files. If a file isn't in the archive, then the applet class loader generally tries to load it in the browser just as it would if the archive file weren't present.

The standard Java archive format, called JAR, was introduced in JDK 1.1 and is based on the ZIP file format. You specify JAR files using the ARCHIVE attribute of the <APPLET> tag. You can specify multiple archive files by separating them with commas:

<APPLET CODE="AppletSubclass.class" ARCHIVE="file1, file2"
        WIDTH=anInt HEIGHT=anInt>
</APPLET>

Unfortunately, not all browsers understand the same archive format or use the same HTML code to specify the applet archive. Watch this page for the latest information about browser support for archives. To learn how to create a JAR file