I am currently working on a project planning software that “tries” to utilize Java Webstart as its deployment method. Nowadays it is common practice that login dialogs also allow new users to register with the application and existing users to retrieve their password if they forgot it. When I was trying to implement these features I ran into all kinds of issues and finally gave up.

The problem is that login dialogs for webstart applications are stupid. They are not aware of the context in which they are running. All they “know” is that they were shown to the user as a result of a callback from the server. The callback is asking for a user name and a password. This is fine for a simple standard login, but not for an advanced one. How can a new user be created on the server without some kind of connection to the server? Especially if the server is not even known, which is the case when running the webstart client inside an application client container (ACC). The whole idea behind the ACC is to provide injection capabilities, hence freeing the application developer from configuring the initial context.

The following screenshot shows the standard login screen. When the user clicks on the “Login” button the callback object will be populated with the user name and password. The application then simply continues if the login was successful. Another issue I had here was that I could not find out wether the login failed or not. On failure the dialog would simply disappear.

The next screen shows the controls used for registering a new user. I was unable to find a way to actually call something on the server so that the new user would be added. Please let me know if anyone knows a solution for this.

The last screen is used for retrieving a lost password. Once again I ran into problems. The server will not do anything without an authorized user. A solution would be to create a technical user, e.g. “sys” with password “sys”. These values could be put into the callback object and sent back to the server. But how do I let the application know that a password retrieval is in progress? Where do I trigger the code needed to send a mail that contains the user’s password?

Once again, any help would be much appreciated. I still have a couple of months of coding ahead of me before the first release. I would hate to give up on using Webstart as a deployment vehicle.