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.

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