LED Sign V2.1 beta
Compatible with pre-beta/beta java and Netscape 2.0
New Features
- Displays the current time/date
- URL links - takes you to another page if you click on the sign
while a certain message is being displayed (Try it! click on the
sign while it is displaying "Sun Systems".)
Known bugs
- Delay problems. You might notice that this pre-beta java version runs
a little slower than the alpha3 version, there seems to be some problems
how java handles delays. Wiggle your mouse cursor over the applet, you
should notice the sign speed up. This bug is apparent on a Sun SparcStation.
I don't know if it does the same on other machines. I have seen this bug
with other applets like the ticker tape at
CNET.
- If you click on the sign while it displays "Sun Systems", it will take
you to Sun's home page. Then, if you go back to the LED page and try it again,
Netscape will give you a "NullPointerException" error. This is definitely a
bug in java/Netscape. This is also noticable at
CNET.
- And don't do a "netscape -install". Netscape does not handle the color map
correctly for applets at all.
I believe that the bugs listed above are a result of java/Netscape and
not a result of my program. But, if you happen to find a way to fix
them or find some new bugs, please let me know.
Usability
This applet was designed to be "user friendly". Everything you see
the sign displaying is run entirely by a script. No changes to the
source code is necessary to get the sign to display a new message or
use the different transitions; it is all controlled with the script.
In fact, if you want to use this applet all you need is the byte code
for the applet.
More on the
Script Feature.
Here is the Demo script that the sign
above is running.
Flexibility
The LED applet also has a large amount of flexibility. The size, size
of border, color of border, and even the font that the sign uses are
all configurable. The size and border parameters can be easily set in
the applet "command line" in the HTML. The font is specified by a
data file that contains the shape for each letter. The font data file
can have as many or few characters as needed. If a character is used
in the message but is not in the font data file, then it will be
substituted by a space.
More on
fonts
.
More on
configurability
.
Download LED Sign V2.1b
The UNIX tar/gzip file LEDSignV21b.tar.gz
OR
The pkzip file (for those Win95'ers) LEDSign.zip
All source is pre-compiled.
The LED Sign HotJava applet is written and Copyright 1995 by
Darrick Brown