Swing Application Setup

Swing applications are configured in json format and by default are saved in file webswing.config, which is by default placed in the same folder as the webswing-server.war file. This location may be changed using the -c command-line option. It is recommended to use the Administration console form based configuration screen to modify this file to avoid JSON formatting problems.

Using Admin console

The easiest way of configuring your application is using the Admin console. To access the Admin console click Manage from Webswing homepage or add /admin path to your Webswing URL (ie. http://localhost:8080/admin). This will navigate you to the Admin Dashboard where you can see the list of configured applications. You can add new or edit existing applications here.

Swing application list

You can select a specific application from the left-hand navigation bar or scroll down within the list of all. To configure the application click Show Config button which will navigate you to the configuration page of selected application.

You can edit or view the settings. These are split in logical sections. Each setting has a description, which is displayed when hovered on the question mark.

Swing general settings

JSON format description

Here is a sample webswing.config file content with demo swing application configured:

{
  "/swingset3" : {
    "path" : "/swingset3",
    "webFolder" : "",
    "security" : {
      "module" : "INHERITED",
      "config" : null,
      "classPath" : [ ],
      "authorizationConfig" : {
        "users" : [ ],
        "roles" : [ ]
      }
    },
    "icon" : "${webswing.rootDir}/demo/SwingSet3/icon.png",
    "homeDir" : "demo/SwingSet3",
    "langFolder" : "${webswing.rootDir}/lang",
    "swingConfig" : {
      "name" : "SwingSet3",
      "jreExecutable" : "${java.home}/bin/java",
      "javaVersion" : "${java.version}",
      "vmArgs" : "-Xmx128m -DauthorizedUser=${user}",
      "classPathEntries" : [ "${webswing.rootDir}/demo/SwingSet3/SwingSet3.jar", "${webswing.rootDir}/demo/SwingSet3/lib/*.jar" ],
      "theme" : "Murrine",
      "fontConfig" : {
        "dialog" : "${webswing.rootDir}/fonts/Roboto-Regular.ttf",
        "dialoginput" : "${webswing.rootDir}/fonts/RobotoMono-Regular.ttf",
        "serif" : "${webswing.rootDir}/fonts/RobotoSlab-Regular.ttf"
      },
      "maxClients" : 10,
      "sessionMode" : "CONTINUE_FOR_BROWSER",
      "swingSessionTimeout" : 300,
      "allowStealSession" : true,
      "isolatedFs" : true,
      "debug" : true,
      "javaFx" : true,
      "directdraw" : true,
      "allowDelete" : true,
      "allowDownload" : true,
      "allowAutoDownload" : true,
      "allowUpload" : true,
      "uploadMaxSize" : 5,
      "allowJsLink" : true,
      "launcherType" : "Desktop",
      "launcherConfig" : {
        "mainClass" : "com.sun.swingset3.SwingSet3",
        "args" : null
      },
      "allowedCorsOrigins" : [ "*" ],
      "userDir" : "${user}",
      "transparentFileSave" : true,
      "clearTransferDir" : true,
      "transparentFileOpen" : true,
      "autoLogout" : true,
      "transferDir" : "${user}/upload",
      "timeoutIfInactive" : false,
      "allowLocalClipboard" : true,
      "goodbyeUrl" : ""
    },
    "enabled" : true
  }
}

Configuration File Organization

The JSON configuration file is organized by the unique URL endpoints. Each URL endpoint has therefore its own configuration. This can be seen in the Webswing binary distribution webswing.config file:

{
  "/" : {
    "path" : "/",
    "security" : ...
    },
    ...
  },
  "/swingset3" : {
    "path" : "/swingset3",
    "security" : {...},
    ...
    "swingConfig" : {
      "name" : "SwingSet3",
      ...
      "launcherType" : "Desktop",
      "launcherConfig" : {
        "mainClass" : "com.sun.swingset3.SwingSet3",
        "args" : null
      },
    },
  },
  "/netbeans" : {
    "path" : "/netbeans",
    ...
  },
  "/applet" : {
    "path" : "/applet",
    ...
  },
  "/javafx" : {
    "path" : "/javafx",
    ...
}

Variable resolution

Most of the text options support variable replacement. Available variables are Java system properties, OS environment variables, and a set of special Webswing variables. Variables are specified with dollar followed by variable name in curly brackets. For example, ${variable_name}.

In additions to variables, for classPathEntries properties it is possible to use wild-card characters. Supported wild-cards are * (everything) and ? (any singe character).

Available variables:

Variable Name	Description
`${user}`	Webswing specific logged in user name.
`${clientId}`	Webswing specific unique browser identifier.
`${clientIp}`	IP address of browser that started this application.
`${clientLocale}`	Locale of browser that started this application.
`${customArgs}`	Custom Arguments specified in URL parameters. See details
Java system Properties	All properties accessible to server's JVM using System.getProperty method
System environment variables	All OS level environment variables accessible to script that started Webswing server JVM.

In Admin Console options with variable replacement support appears with a flash icon. When focused a panel with resolved value of is displayed:

Variables resolution

Settings overview

General

Setting	Description
Name	Application name
Theme	Select one of the default window decoration themes or a enter path to a XFWM4 theme folder
Fonts	Customize logical font mappings and define physical fonts available to the application. These fonts (TTF only) will be used for DirectDraw as native fonts. Key: name of font (ie. dialog
DirectDraw Rendering	DirectDraw rendering mode uses canvas instructions to render the application instead of server-rendered png images. DirectDraw improves performance but is not recommended for applications with lot of graphics content
JavaFx Support	Only for Java8! Enables native or embedded JavaFx framework support.
Enable Debug Mode	Enables remote debug for this application. To start the application in debug mode, use '?debugPort=8000' url param

Java

Setting	Description
Working Directory	The User working directory. Path from which the application process will be started. (See the Java System Property: 'user.dir')
JRE Executable	Path to Java executable that will be used to spawn application process. Java 7 and 8 is supported.
Java Version	Java version of the JRE executable defined above. Expected values are starting with '1.7' or '1.8'.
Class Path	Application's class path. Absolute or relative path to jar file or classes directory. At least one class path entry should be specified containing the main class. Supports ? and * wildcards
JVM Arguments	Command-line arguments processed by Oracle's Java Virtual Machine (i.e. '-Xmx128m').
Launcher Type	Select the application type. Applet or regular Desktop Application
Launcher Configuration	Launcher type specific configuration options

Session

Setting	Description
Max. Connections	Maximum number of allowed simultaneous connections for this application.
Session Mode	Select session behaviour when user reconnects to application. ALWAYS_NEW_SESSION: New application is started for every Webswing session. (Session timeout will be set to 0.) CONTINUE_FOR_BROWSER: Webswing session can be resumed in the same browser after connection is terminated. (Session timeout applies). CONTINUE_FOR_USER: Application session can be resumed by the same user from any computer after the connection is terminated(Session timeout applies)
Session Timeout	Specifies how long (seconds) left the application will be running after the user closes the browser. User can reconnect in this interval and continue in last session
Timeout if Inactive	If True, the Session Timeout will apply for user inactivity (Session Timeout has to be > 0). Otherwise, only disconnected sessions will time out.
Session Stealing	If enabled, and session mode 'CONTINUE_FOR_USER' is selected, user can resume Webswing session, even if the connection is open in another browser. The former browser window will be disconnected.
Auto Logout	If enabled, user is automatically logged out after the application finished.
Goodbye URL	Absolute or relative URL to redirect to, when application exits. Use '/' to navigate back to Application selector.

Features

Setting	Description
Isolated Filesystem	If true, every file chooser dialog will be restricted to access only the home directory of current application
Uploading Files	If selected, the JFileChooser integration will allow users to upload files to folder opened in the file chooser dialog
Deleting Files	If selected, the JFileChooser integration will allow users to delete files displayed in the file chooser dialog
Downloading Files	If selected, the JFileChooser integration will allow users to download files displayed in the file chooser dialog
Auto-Download from Save Dialog	If selected, the JFileChooser dialog's save mode will trigger file download as soon as the selected file is available on filesystem
Transparent Open File Dialog	If selected, the JFileChooser dialog's open mode will open a client side file browser and transparently upload selected files and triggers selection
Transparent Save File Dialog	If selected, the JFileChooser dialog's save mode will open a client side dialog to enter the file name to be saved
Upload Folder	If Isolated Filesystem is enabled. This will be the folder on the server where the user can upload and download files from. Multiple folders can be defined using path separator (${path.separator})
Clear Upload Folder	If enabled, all files in the transfer folder will be deleted when the application process is terminated
Upload Size Limit	Maximum size of upload for single file (in MB). Set 0 for unlimited size
Domains Allowed to Embed	If you are embedding Webswing to page on different domain, you have to enable Cross-origin resource sharing (CORS) by adding the domain in this list. Use * to allow all domains
Allow JsLink	If enabled, the JSLink feature will be enabled, allowing application to invoke JavaScript and vice versa. (See netscape.javascript.JSObject)
Allow Local Clipboard	Enables built-in integration of client's local clipboard. Due to browser security limitations, clipboard toolbar is displayed.

Fonts configuration

Selection of fonts available to any Swing application is dependent on the platform it is running on. A different set of fonts is available on the Windows system and different on Linux system. To ensure the user experience is consistent, Webswing provides an option to configure which fonts will be available for each Swing application.

Font are configured in webswing.config file as described above. This is how the configuration looks:

  "fontConfig" : {
      "dialog" : "${user.dir}/fonts/Roboto-Regular.ttf",
      "dialoginput" : "${user.dir}/fonts/RobotoMono-Regular.ttf",
      "serif" : "${user.dir}/fonts/RobotoSlab-Regular.ttf"
    },

If you omit this setting or no fonts are defined, Webswing will use the default platform specific settings.

If this setting is present, only fonts defined in this property file will be available to your Swing application.

Font settings are important when DirectDraw rendering is enabled. DirectDraw will transfer configured fonts to browser (when used for the first time) and use them as native fonts.

Using too many or too large fonts may result in rendering delays.

If fonts are not configured, Webswing will use default browser fonts for rendering logical font families ( dialog, dialoginput, sansserif, serif, monospaced) and less efficient Glyph rendering for other fonts.

Custom Swing startup script

Sometimes, it is necessary to prepare the environment before the Swing process is started. This may include steps like changing the current working directory or using sudo to run Swing as a different user. This can be achieved by pointing the jreExecutable option to custom startup script.

Custom Swing startup script must follow a few rules in order to work with Webswing:

The last step of the script should execute Java with the arguments as passed in by Webswing. (ie. $JAVA_HOME/bin/java $@ )
If the script has arguments of its own, they should be shifted before calling Java (shift 3 if your script uses 3 arguments)
Be aware that variable resolution in webswing.config is done in the server's context (the environment changes will not be reflected to variables defined in webswing.config).

Here is an example of the custom script that will use sudo to run the Swing process as the logged in user. We assume that users defined in users.properties have OS level counterparts and the user used to start the server is properly configured in sudoers (needs NOPASSWD flag in sudoers - see man page).

Here is our application configuration:

{
    "name" : "SwingSet3",
    "jreExecutable": "startSwingSet3.sh ${user}",
    "javaVersion": "1.8",
    "mainClass" : "com.sun.swingset3.SwingSet3",
    "classPathEntries" : [ "SwingSet3.jar", "lib/*.jar" ],
    "vmArgs" : "-Xmx128m",
    "args" : "",
    "homeDir" : "demo/SwingSet3"
}

When Webswing starts a Swing application with the above configuration, the command-line will look like this:

startSwingSet3.sh johnDoe -Xmx128m <webswing specific configuration> -cp webswing-server.war main.Main

Now the custom script demo/SwingSet3/startSwingSet3.sh that runs the Java process as the logged in user will look like this:

#!/bin/sh
#save user to temporary variable
USER=$1
#shift the arguments by one - the user
shift
#handle system events
trap : SIGTERM SIGINT
#run java with sudo 
sudo -u $USER /home/work/jdk/jdk/bin/java $@ &
#wait for java to exit or kill if signaled 
JAVA_PID=$!
wait $JAVA_PID
if [[ $? -gt 128 ]]
then
    kill $JAVA_PID
fi

No matching documents found.

#Swing Application Setup

#Using Admin console

#JSON format description

#Configuration File Organization

#Variable resolution

#Settings overview

#General

#Java

#Session

#Features

#Fonts configuration

#Custom Swing startup script