Using JAVA in websites

[DonNagual]

Made my first website for my soon-to-be-born first company. It's all in Japanese, otherwise I'd link you to it

I used FrontPage to design it, and put some JAVA buttons in there as they look kind of cool.

I just want to get some feedback from anyone who is familiar with webdesign.... and there any drawbacks to using JAVA? Should I avoid it?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Nodsu]

Using Java means that the clients have to load the Java VM in order to run the applets. The Java VM is big, so your buttons will load slow (very slow on older computers). Not to mention that the buttons won't work with browsers/computers that don't have Java installed/enabled.

You should use Java applets only if you need to do some really complex stuff or when people are spending a lot of time on your website (so Java loading time makes up a smaller portion of the whole experience). Or, of course, if all your users have awesome computers with plenty of RAM

 

[DonNagual]

Interesting. Thanks for the input!

On my splash screen I have some navigation buttons that I put in. When the mouse goes over them, they change color and it's just a nice touch.

By browsing and looking at some other sites, I have seen some people who seem to have .gif files that change when the mouse is over them (as opposed to using JAVA to do this).

Anyone care to give this beginner a pointer? For example, take a look at the "quote" button to the bottom right of my post here. If I wanted that button to change to yellow when a mouse hovered over it, how can I do that without stressing people's computers too much?

 

[Spike]

you'd have two different gifs - one blue and one yellow, and create a "rollover" by using javascripts (note, not the same as java, though you may well already know this ) OnMouseOver function... http://joemaller.com/js-singleroll.shtml

Either that, or you could use a CSS rollover... http://www.designmeme.com/articles/cssrollovers/