Web environments are evolving and most modern browsers have discontinued NPAPI plug-ins, including Java. This means that browsers like Google Chrome or Firefox no longer execute Java applets. Microsoft Internet Explorer 11, which ships with Windows 10, is one of the few web environments still allowing execution of applets, as long as Java is properly installed in the system. Try it out, it still works flawlessly.

The applets posted on this site have not been calibrated to work properly on Apple computers.  They will run, but some may have problems in the graphical interface. 

However, a number of modules have been adapted for the companion web site of the book " Fundamentals of Applied Electromagnetics" 8th Edition, by Ulaby and Ravaioli (published by Pearson, 2020).

The companion site of the book currently offers also the option to run "Java applications" rather than applets. These Java applications are delivered over the internet via the Java Web Start protocol and they have been adjusted and tested to work properly under both Microsoft Windows and Apple OSX operating systems. The "jnlp" files necessary to access the Java applications are delivered by sending a request with the browser but the software actually runs on the desktop in independent windows, not in the browser itself. Therefore, virtually all browsers can be used to access Java Web Start. The applications on the companion website of the book can be found HERE.

Although the Java Web Start option is available to distribute the software via the internet, this process impacts our ability to maintain the free service. We are evaluating whether an effort to convert the whole amanogawa.com site to Java Web Start can be sustained, given other existing priorities. We hope we can continue serving the vast community accessing amanogawa.com, which includes also students and professionals in many underdeveloped countries. We will continue to maintain the legacy applets at amanogawa.com for the time being, along with the other educational material available in pdf format. Considering that we have never charged for the service and we have never had annoying advertisement, this is still a good deal for our faithful community of users. It is worth the trouble of installing MS Windows Explorer, as long as it is enabled to run Java applets for now.

Sadly, there is really nothing wrong with Java which remains a superior language for rapid development of serious scientific applications, with excellent numerical capabilities. Realization of extremely complex interactive software is possible because the language is so powerful and the development tools are so advanced. Unfortunately, the needs of education are not a priority for the corporate world. The problems with security have been due to pervasive use of Java on the server side, which the language was not originally intended for.

As a final note, since the project started in 1995 much has changed in the world of personal computers, notably in the available resolution of monitors. The main limitation of our legacy applets is the fixed size in terms of pixels of the interface, which will appear progressively smaller in the future, as resolution is increased. It is always possible for users to select a lower resolution but this is not an optimal solution. The Java Applications for the book by Ulaby and Ravaioli mentioned above are being retrofitted to sense the resolution used and scale automatically. Given the complexity of most interfaces, this process is quite onerous. We do not envision being able to retrofit all the legacy applets on this website at this time.