HTML <APPLET> tag description

Here's the complete syntax for the tag. Elements your specify are in lowercase.

   <APPLET
       CODEBASE = codebaseURL
       ARCHIVE = archiveList
       CODE = appletFile ...or...  OBJECT = serializedApplet
       ALT = alternateText
       NAME = appletInstanceName
       WIDTH = pixels  HEIGHT = pixels
       ALIGN = alignment
       VSPACE = pixels  HSPACE = pixels
   >
   <PARAM NAME = appletAttribute1 VALUE = value>
   <PARAM NAME = appletAttribute2 VALUE = value>
   . . .
   alternateHTML
   </APPLET>

CODE, CODEBASE, and so on are attributes of the applet tag; they give the browser information about the applet. Some browser also have defined proprietary elements, like Netscapes MAYSCRIPT element; we prefer not to describe these. The only mandatory attributes are CODE (or OBJECT), WIDTH, and HEIGHT; note however that for Applicets running as application CODE and OBJECT are not used (but they are when running as applet!).

Each attribute is described below.

CODE = appletFile: This REQUIRED attribute gives the name of the file that contains the applet's compiled Applet subclass. This file is relative to the base URL of the applet. It cannot be absolute. One of CODE or OBJECT must be present. The value appletFile can be of the form classname.class or of the form packagename.classname.class.
OBJECT = serializedApplet: This attribute gives the name of the file that contains a serialized representation of an Applet. The Applet will be deserialized. The init() method will *not* be invoked; but its start() method will. Attributes valid when the original object was serialized are *not* restored. Any attributes passed to this APPLET instance will be available to the Applet; we advocate very strong restraint in using this feature. An applet should be stopped before it is serialized. One of CODE or OBJECT must be present.
WIDTH = pixels HEIGHT = pixels: These REQUIRED attributes give the initial width and height (in pixels) of the applet display area, not counting any windows or dialogs that the applet brings up. Note that modern browsers also support percentage values instead of pixels.
CODEBASE = codebaseURL: This OPTIONAL attribute specifies the base URL of the applet--the directory that contains the applet's code. If this attribute is not specified, then the document's URL is used.
ARCHIVE = archiveList: This OPTIONAL attribute describes one or more archives containing classes and other resources that will be "preloaded". The classes are loaded using an instance of an AppletClassLoader with the given CODEBASE. The archives in archiveList are separated by ",". NB: in JDK1.1, multiple APPLET tags with the same CODEBASE share the same instance of a ClassLoader. This is used by some client code to implement inter-applet communication. Future JDKs may provide other mechanisms for inter-applet communication. For security reasons, the applet's class loader can read only from the same codebase from which the applet was started. This means that archives in archiveList must be in the same directory as, or in a subdirectory of, the codebase. Entries in archiveList of the form ../a/b.jar will not work unless explicitly allowed for in the security policy file (except in the case of an http codebase, where archives in archiveList must be from the same host as the codebase, but can have ".."'s in their paths.)
ALT = alternateText: This OPTIONAL attribute specifies any text that should be displayed if the browser understands the APPLET tag but can't run Java applets.
NAME = appletInstanceName: This OPTIONAL attribute specifies a name for the applet instance, which makes it possible for applets on the same page to find (and communicate with) each other.
ALIGN = alignment: This OPTIONAL attribute specifies the alignment of the applet. The possible values of this attribute are the same as those for the IMG tag: left, right, top, texttop, middle, absmiddle, baseline, bottom, absbottom.
VSPACE = pixels HSPACE = pixels: These OPTIONAL attributes specify the number of pixels above and below the applet (VSPACE) and on each side of the applet (HSPACE). They're treated the same way as the IMG tag's VSPACE and HSPACE attributes.
<PARAM NAME = appletAttribute1 VALUE = value> <PARAM NAME = appletAttribute2 VALUE = value> . . .: These optional tags are the only way (apart from WIDHT = pixels and HEIGHT = pixels) to specify execution-time attributes. Applets access these attributes with the getParameter() method.