Technical Information for DGP Applet
Technical Information
The DGP applet consists of about 100 Java classes and 'gif' files. To speed up the loading of the applet, the DGP applet classes are bundled into a single JAR file which can be downloaded to your browser in a single HTTP transaction. If each of the DGP applet classes is stored as an individual file on the server, then browsers will have to download them file by file.
You can run the DGP applet offline as a Java application. The DGP application has all the functionalities of the applet and runs as a distributed application, communicating with the server at the various stages of its run. In addition, the application has the following advantages :
- You have the flexibility to stop the run before the specified number of generations have completed, save the population and the parameter settings and continue the run later on from where you left off previously. You will be asked to save the population and parameter settings whenever you stop the run before its natural end via Dialogs. Everytime you start the DGP application, you will be prompted as to whether you would like to load a previously saved population and parameter settings to continue a previous run. This functionality is absent in the DGP applet because applet security does not allow access to the local file system.
- You may resize the application window at your discretion and the layout adjusts.
To run as an application,
- Download the zipped JAR file DGPBundle.jar.zip into your directory.
- Unzipped DGPBundle.jar.zip into DGPBundle.jar.
- Set your CLASSPATH to point to this JAR file. For example, if the JAR file is donwload into /home/applets/DGPBundle.jar, then set your classpath to /home/applets/DGPBundle.jar.
- Use a Java interpreter, such as SUN's java or Microsoft's jview to run the DGP application. The commands to enter are :
- for java from the SUN JDK :
java DGP
- for jview from Microsoft's Visual J++ :
jview DGP
The applet was compiled with SUN's JDK version 1.1.6 and tested to work with Netscape version 4, Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 and SUN's appletviewer on SUN machines and on PCs.
Testings done show that the applet will not run using Netscape version 3 on all platforms as well as Netscape version 4 on Digital Alpha machines. The applet can, however, be run on the Digital Alpha machines using appletviewer or as an application.
With Microsoft Internet Explorer, the DGP applet cannot be run in the background and will terminate when you leave the applet page to browse another page. Netscape, on the other hand, does not have such a problem. Depending on the option you specify, Netscape either runs the applet in the background or suspends it when you leave the applet page for another page.
The whole 'Settings' dialog window can only be displayed on a monitor with a screen resolution of 1280 x 1024 pixels. As such, please ensure that your screen resolution is set to 1280 x 1024 pixels before you bring up the 'Settings' dialog window. If your monitor is set to a lower screen resolution, only part of the 'Settings' dialog window can be displayed and you will not be able to quit the 'Settings' dialog window without first changing your screen resolution to 1280 x 1024 pixels dynamically.
The 'Settings' dialog window has to be made scrollable in order for it to be independent of screen resolutions. This feature will be provided for the dialog window some time in the near future.
The source code for the DGP applet is formatted into a compressed "tar" file called "DGPsrc.tar.Z". It requires 2 megabytes of disk space when it is fully uncompressed and 'untarred'.
Click here to download the source code for the DGP applet.
The report for my project is in the form of a compressed PostScript file called "report3.ps.Z". It contains 103 pages and requires 15 megabytes of disk space after it is uncompressed.
Click here to download the report for this project (entitled "A distributed approach to Genetic Programming on the Internet").
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Last updated on 25/09/98