Name: yyT116575 Date: 10/16/2001


When deploying applets which use Java extensions like the Java Advanced Imaging
library, we face a problem with letting our users determine if their machines
are properly configured, without having to run the applet (and possibly have
it fail) to find out. In the case of the JAI library, for instance, the user
will wish to know both whether they have the correct version of the library
installed on their machine, and whether that JAI library was, in fact,
installed in the specific JVM (JRE) which is to be referenced by our applet.
(Recall that the JAI installation procedure selects some one particular JVM
by default; this may be the wrong one if you happen to have multiple JRE
versions installed on your machine.) I suspect similar issues arise with
other Java extensions.

  To resolve this issue, we hereby request an enhancement to the Java Plug-in
Control Panel. Somewhere, most likely in the About panel, you should list all
the extensions which have been installed for use with the currently selected
JVM used by the plug-in, and you should display the active version of each
such extension. This would provide the end-users a central place to look,
and means to verify that their current configuration meets the actual applet
requirements.
(Review ID: 133858)
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