C.W. - Tue, 2015/04/28 - 15:00

With Microsoft and Google moving away from Java compatibility with their latest browsers, where does this leave the webmin plugins which utilize Java?  Are there any plans to move to some other code for the interafce, such as HTML 5 or similar?

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Jeremy Davis's picture

Jeremy Davis - Tue, 2015/04/28 - 16:29
With regards to Chrome, technically they aren't stopping support for Java per-se. They have been rolling out a Netscape plugin API (NPAPI) depreciation plan since 2013. And currently Oracle Java still relies on the NPAPI. A quick Google turned up this suggesting that Oracle won't be doing anything any time soon to make Java work with one of the other plugin APIs (that Chrome supports). So in effect you are right; but it seems like a bit of a Mexican stand-off to me.

As for Spartan, that is slightly different (although somewhat the same) because MS never supported NPAPI anyway so Java has historically used ActiveX - which has been dropped in Spartan. So again technically it's not dropping Java support, just support for the plugin architecture that the Oracle Java plugin currently uses...

So at this point in time it looks like if you want to use any Java applets you'll need to keep Firefox and/or IE11 handy...

But back to your actual question (sorry for the side-track). I have no idea what the Webmin devs plan to do. FWIW TurnKey only package their software and pre-install it on TurnKey. We don't have any sway or influence. I would imagine that they will move towards a HTML5/Javascript implementation. But I only say that because it's what I'd do if I was a Webmin dev! :) I do not have any more info than you!

Instead they may say that Webmin File Manager only works in Firefox and IE11 and that if you want to use it, you need to use one of those browsers!?

So long and the short is that please ask Webmin devs. It looks like they have a mailing list and a forum. If you get a good answer I'd love to hear so please post back.

PS please excuse my rambling answer... :)

Nick Meisher's picture

Nick Meisher - Fri, 2015/05/01 - 02:02

At the moment there is no answer for Webmin.

However Java website gave instruction as to how to re-activate NPAPI for latest Chrome version.

[ https://java.com/en/download/faq/chrome.xml ]

As of Chrome Version 42, an additional configuration step is required to continue using NPAPI plugins.

  1. In your URL bar, enter:
    chrome://flags/#enable-npapi 
  2. Click the Enable link for the Enable NPAPI configuration option.
  3. Click the Relaunch button that now appears at the bottom of the configuration page.

 

russell's picture

russell - Mon, 2015/05/11 - 22:07

This was only suppose too work until Sept. 2015.

Jeremy Davis's picture

Jeremy Davis - Sun, 2015/05/17 - 12:13
So IE or Firefox will be only options then...
Mark Lawrence's picture

Mark Lawrence - Mon, 2015/08/03 - 23:29

I have had sluggish response in Chrome since the middle part of July 2015.  Today, 8/03/2015 I decided to use the IE Tab in Chrome to access Webmin and it seems to work fine, just like it used to.  First, I enabled NPAPI using the chrome://flags/#enable-npapi that Jermey had mentioned previously in this thread.  The IE Tab is available in the Chrome Web Store.  Note that I am using this on my Windows 7 desktop PC with Chrome Version 44.0.2403.125.

Jeremy Davis's picture

Jeremy Davis - Tue, 2015/08/04 - 04:48
Just wanted to let you all know that an HTML5/JavaScript file manager appears to be in the works... A Webmin community member has implemented it and AFAIK the Webmin devs are doing QA on it with the intention of (hopefully) using it as a replacement for the current Java applet....

Please see this thread on our issue tracker for further info.

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