FunStart4j

A Java Webstart Alternative technology with support for JNLPs.

Since Java WebStart is is not included in OpenJDK based jvm installs and is being deprecated by Oracle (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46904795/java-web-start-support-in-java-9-and-beyond) FunStart4j is intended to work with your existing JNLPs to run your WebStart app just by downloading a jar and pointing it at your JNLP file.

FunStart4j Gradle Integration

Add the following dependency to your build.gradle file:

dependencies {
	compile "io.github.mainstringargs:FunStart4j:1.1.0"
}

Building

Run

./gradlew build

Running a Webstart Application using the FunStart4j GUI

There are multiple ways to run thie application.

Using gradle, you can just run:

./gradlew run

If you’re using an actual release, you can extract the zip/tar and run bin/FunStart4j.bat or bin/FunStart4j (Linux)

You can also just use the FunStart4j Jar itself, as it is a Fat-Jar and includes all of its dependencies. Just double click on it and it should run.

Using the FunStart4j GUI

alt text

Drop a JNLP URL into the text box (For example: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorialJWS/samples/uiswing/ProgressBarDemoProject/ProgressBarDemo.jnlp)
Click “Start” which will start the JNLP parsing and download process
When the download process is finished, click “Run” to start the application

Running a Webstart Application using the Command Line

The easiest way is to do something like this from the command line:

java -jar build/libs/FunStart4j-X.X.X.jar https://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/java/latest/webstart/AirspaceBuilder.jnlp

Running a Webstart Application using the Command Line w/ properties and JVM configuration

Prepend properties and JVM configuration with -J. For example:

For example this will set the favorite.day property, the favorite.car property, the Maximum Heap size to 1024 megabytes, and print out garbage collection details for the Webstart Application:

java build/libs/FunStart4j-X.X.X.jar -J-Dfavorite.day=Saturday -J-Dfavorite.car="Nissan 350Z" -J-Xmx1024m -J-XX:+PrintGCDetails https://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/java/latest/webstart/AirspaceBuilder.jnlp