Java AWT Reference

A

Using Properties and Resources

In this appendix:

• System Properties
• Server Properties
• Resource Bundles

Java provides “property lists” that are similar to Xdefaults in the X Window system. Programs can use properties to customize their behavior or find out information about the run-time environment; by reading a property list, a program can set defaults, choose colors and fonts, and more, without any changes to the code. Java 1.1 makes property lists much more general. Although the basic features of property lists did not change between Java 1.0 and 1.1, the way you access them did. Instead of providing specific locations for files, Java 1.1 provides access to these resource bundles in a more general scheme, described in Section A.3.

A.1 System Properties

Although Java applications can define property lists as conveniences, there is one special property list that is common to all applications and applets: System Properties. This list currently has 14 properties in Java 1.0 and 21 in Java 1.1, although you may add to it, and more standard properties may be added in the future. An application has access to all of them. Because of security restrictions, an applet has access only to 9. Among other things, these properties allow you to customize your code for different platforms if you want to provide workarounds for platform-specific deficiencies or load native methods if available.

Table A-1 contains the complete list of system properties. The last column specifies whether an ...