IcedTea - how to show the applet console..?

Question

since recently I think we are forced to use IcedTea to run applets in Ubuntu 11.10. At least I don't see how to install Sun Java from the Software Center.

I would like to debug an applet which gives problems in IcedTea. However, I don't know how to show the applet console. So no chance to see any Exceptions.

Cheers, Ruth

Solution 1

You can easily see near realtime the output of the IcedTea Java plugin by first running in two separate terminal windows the following commands then invoking the applet in your web browser.

$ watch -n 1 'cat $HOME/.icedteaplugin/java.stdout'

or

$ watch -n 1 'cat $HOME/.icedteaplugin/java.stderr'

java.stdout contains standard output of the running applet whereas java.stderr will capture standard error output (capture exceptions trace here).

Note : the "-n" option flag lets you specify the refresh rate in seconds.

Solution 2

In place of watch, tail -f or less , then press +f (follow) can be used.

Solution 3

On Ubuntu 12.04, the location of the log files seems to have changed to ~/.icedtea/log (~ meaning your home directory.)

Alternatively to Tellurant's solution, you can open the log files ~/.icedtea/log/java.stderr and ~/.icedtea/log/java.stdout in gedit and click on reload every time something changes. The dot in front of icedtea makes the .icedtea directory a hidden directory. Hit CTRL-H in nautilus to see hidden directories.