The Lake Applet

Oh dear - your browser doesn't understand Java!!!! Try Netscape 4.0+ Download it for free! (if you've got a couple of hours)

Give the images above a moment to load. If you can see the cool shimmering animation effect above, your browser supports JAVA. If you like it, you can put something like this on your own web page with the following recipe:

Reverend Phil's 4 step easy bake recipe for using this Java Applet - it's called the "Lake Applet" If you aren't far enough along to know how to cut and paste something into your web page
html code and upload files to your server, you're probably not ready to try this out yet.
JAVA Applets use some code in your HTML document (web page) to call up a hidden file, called a class file which is placed in the same directory (folder) as your HTML document on your server (the big computer at your internet service provider). This hidden class file does all the real work in the background.

There are 4 steps:

1. Pick your Image (any jpg or gif)
2. Fix up your HTML code.
3. Download (from this page or elsewhere) the lake.class file that does the actual work.
4. Upload the three files (lake.class, the image, and your newly edited HTML document) into the same directory on your server. Here's the details!

STEP ONE: Pick a cool picture file. Scenery works great but anything will do as long as it's a jpg or gif file. Bitmaps (bmp) won't work. The picture above was taken at Dale Hollow Lake. Of course there is no perspective in real life that would allow the motionless lake in the background to be reflected in itself like this, but the effect is still cool. Whatever you choose will appear to be reflected in a shimmering lake. Note the exact width and height of the picture you choose in pixels. Most image viewers will tell you the dimensions when you view the properties of the image. Save this picture file in a folder - you will need to upload this file to your internet server at the end of this tutorial.

STEP TWO: Edit your web page HTML code using your chosen HTML editor program - like Word Pad. If you use Word Pad, turn off the Word Wrap option whenever editing pages that use JAVA or JAVASCRIPT. Below is the line of code that creates the above effect. Copy and paste it somewhere in the <BODY> section of your page (wherever you want the cool picture to be seen). Paste it in as one long line. Customize it as explained below. Here's the code:

<CENTER>&nbsp;<APPLET CODE="lake" width=416 height=362><PARAM name="image" value="famfour.jpg"></CENTER>

The stuff in blue above needs to be customized with your image file name (such as myface.jpg) and its dimensions (width and height). The sizing of the applet is important. The width should be the same as the width of your image, but the height should be set to twice the height of the image minus 10. So if you have an image that is 200 pixels high, the applet height should be (200 X 2) minus 10 = 390 pixels. Shortening the image by 10 pixels or so ensures that a gap doesn't appear as the waves lap backwards and forwards.
Do the customizing, paste it into your HTML code, and SAVE the changes to your page. Why not put it in the same folder as your image so it's all together in one place. You're done with the HTML work.

STEP 3 Download the file lake.class and put it into the same directory as your picture and your HTML document. Make sure this file ends up being named lake.class. If it got changed when you saved or unzipped it (this sometimes happens), rename it. If I've done this right, you can download a self extracting Zip file by clicking on the file name here: lake.class.exe After downloading, just click to unzip it. - or you can download the same file in regular ZIP format here: lake.class.zip You'll need winzip on board to open regular zip files.
If I've screwed up the links, you can find this class file elsewhere on the net. Just type lake.class into any search engine and you'll find several sites that have it. It's this JAVA class file that flips the lower half of the animation and makes the whole thing work.

General download troubleshooting tips. Having trouble downloading files? Try this...
Netscape users hold down the SHIFT key while you click on the file name or link.
MSIE people, click the right mouse button on the file name.
MAC people can click and hold - then choose to download.

STEP 4 Test your page by opening it in your browser window. If it doesn't work correctly, the most likely problem is that you changed the case of some of the letters when you customized the HTML. Check this since JAVA is case sensitive. If all is cool with your page, upload the files to your server. I can't tell you exactly how to do this as different servers have different protocols. I use an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program to upload my web pages and associated files. There are any number of good FTP programs available as shareware on the web. You can find one at Shareware.com. PEACE!