Using JOGL in Java Web Start

You can use JOGL in a Java Web Start (JWS) application, which lets you launch a full-featured, standalone Java program from a web page. This page shows an example of how to do this. The example program just draws one triangle that fills a resizable window.

Base class

First, a base class that we've used before here. This class draws one triangle, abstracting out all the pure OpenGL calls that don't depend on the choice of window toolkit.

package name.wadewalker.jogl2tests.onetriangle;

import javax.media.opengl.GL;
import javax.media.opengl.GL2;
import javax.media.opengl.glu.GLU;

public class OneTriangle {
    protected static void setup( GL2 gl2, int width, int height ) {
        gl2.glMatrixMode( GL2.GL_PROJECTION );
        gl2.glLoadIdentity();

        // coordinate system origin at lower left with width and height same as the window
        GLU glu = new GLU();
        glu.gluOrtho2D( 0.0f, width, 0.0f, height );

        gl2.glMatrixMode( GL2.GL_MODELVIEW );
        gl2.glLoadIdentity();

        gl2.glViewport( 0, 0, width, height );
    }

    protected static void render( GL2 gl2, int width, int height ) {
        gl2.glClear( GL.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT );

        // draw a triangle filling the window
        gl2.glLoadIdentity();
        gl2.glBegin( GL.GL_TRIANGLES );
        gl2.glColor3f( 1, 0, 0 );
        gl2.glVertex2f( 0, 0 );
        gl2.glColor3f( 0, 1, 0 );
        gl2.glVertex2f( width, 0 );
        gl2.glColor3f( 0, 0, 1 );
        gl2.glVertex2f( width / 2, height );
        gl2.glEnd();
    }
}

Drawing a triangle with AWT

Now, a class that draws the triangle in an AWT Frame. Java Web Start can use any Java windowing toolkit, we've just chosen this one for convenience.

package name.wadewalker.jogl2tests.onetriangle;

import javax.media.opengl.GLAutoDrawable;
import javax.media.opengl.GLEventListener;
import javax.media.opengl.GLProfile;
import javax.media.opengl.GLCapabilities;
import javax.media.opengl.awt.GLCanvas;

import java.awt.Frame;
import java.awt.event.WindowAdapter;
import java.awt.event.WindowEvent;

/**
 * A minimal program that draws with JOGL in an AWT Frame.
 *
 * @author Wade Walker
 */
public class OneTriangleAWT {

    static {
        // setting this true causes window events not to get sent on Linux if you run from inside Eclipse
        GLProfile.initSingleton( false );
    }

    public static void main( String [] args ) {
        GLProfile glprofile = GLProfile.getDefault();
        GLCapabilities glcapabilities = new GLCapabilities( glprofile );
        final GLCanvas glcanvas = new GLCanvas( glcapabilities );

        glcanvas.addGLEventListener( new GLEventListener() {
            
            @Override
            public void reshape( GLAutoDrawable glautodrawable, int x, int y, int width, int height ) {
                OneTriangle.setup( glautodrawable.getGL().getGL2(), width, height );
            }
            
            @Override
            public void init( GLAutoDrawable glautodrawable ) {
            }
            
            @Override
            public void dispose( GLAutoDrawable glautodrawable ) {
            }
            
            @Override
            public void display( GLAutoDrawable glautodrawable ) {
                OneTriangle.render( glautodrawable.getGL().getGL2(), glautodrawable.getWidth(), glautodrawable.getHeight() );
            }
        });

        final Frame frame = new Frame( "One Triangle AWT" );
        frame.add( glcanvas );
        frame.addWindowListener( new WindowAdapter() {
            public void windowClosing( WindowEvent windowevent ) {
                frame.remove( glcanvas );
                frame.dispose();
                System.exit( 0 );
            }
        });

        frame.setSize( 640, 480 );
        frame.setVisible( true );
    }
}

Setting up the application directory

• Create a directory to hold your JWS application
• Create a subdirectory =name/wadewalker/jogl2tests/onetriangle inside= your application directory. Or if you changed the packages of the files above, create a subdirectory that matches your package names.
• Save the files above as =OneTriangle.java= and =OneTriangleAWT.java= inside the subdirectory.
• Copy all JOGL JARs into the application directory. You can get the JARs from a JOGL autobuild here. Usually I pick the latest =jogl-<build number>-<date>= link, download all the =.7z= files inside, and unzip them with 7zip. These are the JARs you should have in your directory:

gluegen-rt.jar
nativewindow.all.jar
jogl.all.jar
newt.all.jar

gluegen-rt-natives-windows-i586.jar
jogl-natives-windows-i586.jar
nativewindow-natives-windows-i586.jar
newt-natives-windows-i586.jar

gluegen-rt-natives-windows-amd64.jar
jogl-natives-windows-amd64.jar
nativewindow-natives-windows-amd64.jar
newt-natives-windows-amd64.jar

gluegen-rt-natives-linux-i586.jar
jogl-natives-linux-i586.jar
nativewindow-natives-linux-i586.jar
newt-natives-linux-i586.jar

gluegen-rt-natives-linux-amd64.jar
jogl-natives-linux-amd64.jar
nativewindow-natives-linux-amd64.jar
newt-natives-linux-amd64.jar

gluegen-rt-natives-macosx-universal.jar
jogl-natives-macosx-universal.jar
nativewindow-natives-macosx-universal.jar
newt-natives-macosx-universal.jar

Compiling and JARing your program

This step assumes you have Java set up so you can use it from the command line. For instructions on this, see [here].

To compile the program on Windows, cd to your application directory and type

javac -classpath "gluegen-rt.jar;nativewindow.all.jar;jogl.all.jar;newt.all.jar" name\wadewalker\jogl2tests\onetriangle\*.java

To compile the program on Linux or Mac OS X, cd to your application directory and type

javac -classpath "gluegen-rt.jar:nativewindow.all.jar:jogl.all.jar:newt.all.jar" name\wadewalker\jogl2tests\onetriangle\*.java

To JAR the program, type

jar cvf onetriangle.jar name\wadewalker\jogl2tests\onetriangle\*.class

Testing your program outside JWS

It's probably a good idea to test your program outside JWS first, to make sure it does what you think it should. To do that, you'll need to unzip the native binaries so Java can see them. Since I ran first on Windows 7 64-bit, I unzipped all the =*-natives-windows-amd64.jar= files, the collected the DLLs inside into a directory called =lib-windows-amd64=. Since I test on the other platforms too, I did the same for the other four platforms, creating four more directories =lib-windows-i586=, =lib-linux-i586=, =lib-linux-amd64=, and =lib-macosx-universal=.

Then to test your program on 64-bit Windows, cd to your application directory and type

java -classpath "gluegen-rt.jar;nativewindow.all.jar;jogl.all.jar;newt.all.jar;onetriangle.jar" -Djava.library.path=lib-windows-amd64 name.wadewalker.jogl2tests.onetriangle.OneTriangleAWT

On 64-bit Linux, type

java -classpath "gluegen-rt.jar:nativewindow.all.jar:jogl.all.jar:newt.all.jar:onetriangle.jar" -Djava.library.path=lib-linux-amd64 name.wadewalker.jogl2tests.onetriangle.OneTriangleAWT

On Mac OS X, type

java -classpath "gluegen-rt.jar:nativewindow.all.jar:jogl.all.jar:newt.all.jar:onetriangle.jar" -Djava.library.path=lib-macosx-universal name.wadewalker.jogl2tests.onetriangle.OneTriangleAWT

jarsigner -keystore testKeys gluegen-rt.jar ww
jarsigner -keystore testKeys nativewindow.all.jar ww
jarsigner -keystore testKeys jogl.all.jar ww
jarsigner -keystore testKeys newt.all.jar ww

jarsigner -keystore testKeys gluegen-rt-natives-windows-i586.jar ww
jarsigner -keystore testKeys jogl-natives-windows-i586.jar ww
jarsigner -keystore testKeys nativewindow-natives-windows-i586.jar ww
jarsigner -keystore testKeys newt-natives-windows-i586.jar ww

jarsigner -keystore testKeys gluegen-rt-natives-windows-amd64.jar ww
jarsigner -keystore testKeys jogl-natives-windows-amd64.jar ww
jarsigner -keystore testKeys nativewindow-natives-windows-amd64.jar ww
jarsigner -keystore testKeys newt-natives-windows-amd64.jar ww

jarsigner -keystore testKeys gluegen-rt-natives-linux-i586.jar ww
jarsigner -keystore testKeys jogl-natives-linux-i586.jar ww
jarsigner -keystore testKeys nativewindow-natives-linux-i586.jar ww
jarsigner -keystore testKeys newt-natives-linux-i586.jar ww

jarsigner -keystore testKeys gluegen-rt-natives-linux-amd64.jar ww
jarsigner -keystore testKeys jogl-natives-linux-amd64.jar ww
jarsigner -keystore testKeys nativewindow-natives-linux-amd64.jar ww
jarsigner -keystore testKeys newt-natives-linux-amd64.jar ww

jarsigner -keystore testKeys gluegen-rt-natives-macosx-universal.jar ww
jarsigner -keystore testKeys jogl-natives-macosx-universal.jar ww
jarsigner -keystore testKeys nativewindow-natives-macosx-universal.jar ww
jarsigner -keystore testKeys newt-natives-macosx-universal.jar ww