You should be careful to check that your unzipping program has named the files correctly. Some DOS programs will name according to the old 8.3 format, rename .class files "*.cla". You can rename them by opening up a DOS window and typing:

ren *.cla *.class

The code which produces the above is:

<applet code="Lake" width=250 height=250> <param name="image" value="sunset.jpg"> <param name="href" value="http://www.demon.co.uk/davidg/spigots.htm"> </applet>

There is NOTHING to pay. The applet is completely free. However, if you want to take pity on a poor starving Java programmer I would appreciate it if you clicked on one of the ad banners on my site, such as the one at the top of http://www.demon.co.uk/davidg/spigots.htm or on the main applet page. It would be particularly fab and funky if you see one for HotMaiL (for which I get a thumping great 40 cents...).

But as ever, I make no requirement to do so. Just an agonizing heart-felt plea... (no - you eat the gruel, Grandma; I assure you I'm quite full :-))

1. Create a (temporary) directory for the files (e.g. c:\lake)
2. Unzip all of the files into the directory
3. Start FrontPage 98
4. Open the appropriate web
5. Change to the folder in the web that contains the page which will contain the lake
6. Choose "File/Import" from the menu
7. When the "Import" dialog appears, click the "Add File" button.
8. Change the "Open File" dialog to the lake directory (e.g. c:\lake)
9. Select all of the files in the directory (you can do this by clicking the first file, then holding down the "CTRL" key and clicking each of the other files in sequence)
10. Click the "Open" button to close the "Open File" dialog.
11. Click the "OK" button to start the import of the files.
12. The files should now appear in the contents of the FrontPage folder.
13. Double-click the page that you want to insert a lake in.
14. Once the page opens, move the cursor to the place on it where you want the lake to appear.
15. Choose "Insert/Image..." from the menu
16. When the "Image" dialog appears, change to the folder containing the file you want to appear at the back of the lake. Click this file once and note down (on a piece of paper) the value which appears in the "URL" field.
17. Now click the "OK" button. The image will now be inserted into page. But it will not yet be rippling.
18. Right-click the image and choose "Image properties" from the menu.
19. When the "Image Properties" dialog appears, switch to the "Appearance" tab.
20. In the size section you should have values for the "Width" and "Height" of the image. Note these down on the same piece of paper that you noted the "URL" value on.
21. Click the "Cancel" button.
22. Delete the image you have just inserted. You should be able to do this by just clicking the "Delete" key.
23. Choose "Insert/Advanced/Java Applet" from the menu.
24. In "Applet Source" enter "Lake"
25. In the section labelled "Applet Parameters" click on the "Add..." button.
26. Enter "image" in the "Name" field
27. Go to the "Value" field and enter the "URL" value that you previously wrote down on the piece of paper.
28. Click the "OK" button.
29. You should now be back in the "Java Applet Properties" dialog. In the "Size" section, click the mouse in the "Width" field.
30. Replace the current value with the "Width" value that you noted on the piece of paper.
31. Now click your mouse in the "Height" property.
32. VERY IMPORTANT: You should now enter a value that is 1.8 times the value for the height that you noted down on the piece of paper. So, for instance, if you originally noted down a value of "100", you should enter 180 into this field.
33. Click the "OK" button. You should now have a large "J" on the page.
34. To see the applet running, click on the "Preview" tab at the bottom of the page.
35. You have set up Lake to run with a single "image" parameter. You can add other parameters by amending the properties of the applet (by right-clicking the applet in the editor view and then choosing "Applet properties"). For a full list of the parameters that can be used, see below.

To include Lake in a web page, you should copy all class files into the same directory as the web page and then insert an <APPLET...> tag into the page, e.g.

<applet code="Lake" width= height=> <param name="image" value="sunset.jpg"> <param name="href" value="http://www.demon.co.uk/davidg/spigots.htm"> </applet>

Each of the "PARAM" tags passes a value to the applet. The examples shown here are the "image" parameter and the "href" parameter. In general the "PARAM" tag has the following format:

<PARAM name="[PARAMETER NAME]" value="[PARAMETER VALUE]">

For a full list of the parameters that can be passed to Lake, see below.

The following parameters can be passed to the Lake:

"image"

JPG or GIF file to reflect

"overlay"

JPG or GIF file to use as an overlay

"target"

Target frame

"hRef"

URL to link to

"rocking"

TRUE if boat rocking

You will need to set the height of the applet by trial and error. Start off with the height equal to about 1.8 * height of original image. If you can still see a gap appearing at the bottom of the applet as the waves move backwards and forwards, then you should reduce the height a little.

If you set the "ROCKING" parameter to "TRUE" then you almost certainly need to reduce the height of the applet.

I'd suggest you put the Lake.class file in the same directory as the page on which it will appear. If you want to move it elsewhere then use the "CODEBASE" option to point to the appropriate directory.

Some implementations of Java will not allow you to put the .class file in one subdirectory and the image file in another. If the try it might cause a security exception.

• If the applet just says "Loading images..." when it is run off the server and never shows the image, the chances are there are problems with the image. If the image is too large then it may not be able to create the animation in memory. On the other hand, it may be that the image is not accessible. Have you spelt the image filename correctly in the

  <param name=image...>

  line? Again you will need to check the case and also the file permissions.

• On some platforms (notably X terminals with very little memory) the animation does not start properly. The reason for this is that the animation frames are created in a buffer image. If the original image is large, then the frames image will be very large. I thought about changing the applet to create the frames in real-time but rejected it. If a machine hasn't got enough memory for the image then the applet will simply appear to be blank; if a machine hasn't got enough processing power to update the screen constantly then you might seize up the machine. On the whole I thought it was better to have blank applets than crashed browsers...
• If you make the applet too large then you will notice a grey strip appear at the bottom of it as the waves lap backwards and forwards. The solution is to make the applet a bit smaller...
• On an artistic note, it is not a good idea to use an image that already has a horizon. If you look across the surface of a lake you will not see the horizon reflected in the surface. The best solution is to cut the image *at* the horizon.
• Do not use transparent GIFs with the applet's "image" parameter. There is no problem using transparent GIFs for the overlay parameter - in fact this is recommended. You can usually tell if a transparent GIF has been used because the top half of the applet will have parts which appear to be upside down.
• Some older versions of Netscape 3 will not let applets use some JPG formats. If you notice that your applet works on Netscape 4 and IE 3 - 4 but no image appears on Netscape 3, this might be the reason.

1. You have not put the class file onto the web site
2. You are not calling the file with the correct name (rename to use the same combination of upper- and lower-case letters as your class file)
3. Your transfer program has changed the name. This does happen. Some programs will shorten the ".class" extension to ".cla". Other will change the case of the letters to either all uppercase or all lowercase. See if you can change the options on the transfer program to stop it doing this.
4. You have include a "codebase=…" clause inside your <applet…> code in your web page. "codebase=…" tells the browser to look some place else for the class file.
5. Some other reason I haven't thought of :-)

Tutorials

• Paul Stephen's Web Site
  Hereinafter known as the geezer. Paul gives a much much better tutorial than I do. Really worth a visit if you want to make the most out of lake.
• Week Three Tutorial At the KrauseHouse
  
• http://www.vizitura.hu/javalake.htm
  In Hungarian

Collections

• Gus Hallgren's Site
  Allegedly the world's largest collection of lakes. Also about the only person on the net to spell my surname correctly... :-)
• Novenas
  The first of a series. For more information about the set, go to the main Novena page.
• Adele's
  Another HUGE collection of lakes
• BowCreek Postcards
  
• World at Our fingers Lakes!
  
• Lake Applet Postcards
  Where the gargoyles live
• Lake Effects
  A sequence of lake images
• http://www.aeol.com/brycestuff.html
  Computer-generated rainbows 'n' stuff
• http://www.angelfire.com/tx/mimms/mylakepics.html
  One of many many many angel sites at angelfire
• Stratton's Home Page
  Canadian Lake Scenes
• Crossley Lakes
  Part of North Cross Designs

Personal Home Pages

• Daybreak
  Particularly recommended. One of the most pleasing lake images I have seen. There is a second one which is possibly even better. Note especially the positioning of the fingers which appear to be touching the surface of the water.
• Linda's Christian and Poetry Page
  Nicely liquid sky. Probably the best sunset pic on the list.
• hdotp
  Nice use of colour.
• Wolf's Lake
  By the artist Janet Fellows. See also Creation of Adam.
• Laurel's Homepage
  
• George Horiuchi's "Flame"
  An interesting combination of the Lake and Ripple applets
• DAPeach's Home in the North Georgia Mountains
  A nice wet rose
• The Misseghers Homepage
  Nice wooden frame effect
• Earthrise
  
• Wendy Rule
  A singing witch, apparently. How very novel.
• jacireann's Home Page
  
• sebastian voges
  
• Addicted 2 MODS
  
• Sunrise at Whitesbog
  
• Cheathams Corner
  
• Suwannee River
  
• waseeka's Home Page
  
• Sydney
  'Struth Sheila. One from Oz. Talking of which, why not visit my very good friend Robin Haywood's web site?
• April and Honey's Homepage
  
• Vikki's Place
  
• Georgia Boy
  

Places

• Manor Inn - Yarmouth, Nova Scotia
  Tastefully done
• Portsmouth Virginia - Tourism
  
• The City of Norfolk Virginia Official Web Site
  Bit of competition between these two I think...

Others

• Strategic Simulations, Inc.
  The War Games Company
• THAMES by Day and Night
  
• CowPokin' Fun - Watson Water Wheel
  
• Churchmead School
  
• Shelton State Class Schedule
  
• ArtPro Web Design
  
• Fraktale
  
• Die Zauberwald-Seite
  
• Sample Personal Postcard Pro Kit
  
• Andy Art
  Lots of free graphics as well
• Wonderful World Of Java
  
• March Object Oriented Pages
  
• Photoshop Actions Archive - Action Addict V2.0
  
• http://www.syrena.de/s_applet.htm
  
• WDVL - The Java Universe
  Opening image of the Web Developer's Library's most righteous site
• Amateur Picture Gallery
  
• ZMS World
  
• Victims No More
  
• Springtide Online '98
  
• Wildlife-n-Wicks
  
• Midi Mania
  
• Bowen Island Historians
  

If you use this applet then it would be nice if you gave me a link by copying the image:

(this is the file "dglogo.gif" in the .zip archive) into the same directory as your web page and then pasting the following into your page.

<a href="http://www.demon.co.uk/davidg/spigots.htm" target="_top"> <img src="dglogo.gif" width=88 height=31 border=0></a>

It will put a little button on your page that will link through to my Java Spigots page.

It is only a request: feel free to omit it.

If you still have trouble getting the applet to work and you have tried all of the possible solutions listed above, then feel to contact me, remembering to include:

1. A precise description of the problem (do you just get a grey rectangle, or an error message etc. etc.)
2. The URL of the page containing the applet (that's the actual page - not just the front page on your site)

These two pieces of information will make it a lot easier for me to solve the problem. I cannot guarantee that I will be able to respond to all messages (there's only so many hours in the day...) but sending the URL of a page that doesn't work will greatly increase the chances of getting an answer.

Remember to keep a look out at my web site for new applets.

David Griffiths,

10/10/1998