Cannot create example applet

I've tried to create a sample HelloWorld applet from the documentation and been thwarted on two
counts:
Once created trying http://www/~cmcmanis/public_html/hello.html
didn't work because it went to tachyon and tachyon didn't have my
class that I just built, I did. It was in the public_html directory.

Then I tried file://~cmcmanis/public_html/hello.html and that didn't work
because the ~cmcmanis wasn't correctly expanded to /home/cmcmanis.

Finally I tried file://localhost/home/cmcmanis/public_html/hello.html and
that tryed to load my applet but failed.

Then I copied the .class file of my applet into the classes directory and that
finally worked.

First I think the AppGuide should initially focus on creating applets "locally" using the file://localhost/...
URL since many people who get access to this for the first time will not be in a position to easily
install files on their http server.

Secondly they should either add ~/public_html to their class path before starting webrunner or
maybe it should be added for them in the scripts. I don't know, but as it won't be easy to diagnose
with stdin/stdout redirected It should be mentioned in a 'If you are having problems ...' section of
the AppGuide