Getting ready for the next Coral release ....

SNF Lab Members:

Within the next couple of days, we will be releasing a new version of
Coral that will require use of Java Version 6 instead of Java Version
5. Why? Java 5 has reached its End of Service Life and is less
supportable than the current version (Java Version 6). More
importantly, new Coral capabilities will likely use features that are
available only in newer versions of Java. For example, people have
suggested that we be able to open xReporter from within Coral and have
also suggested that links to online documentation be available from
within Coral. Both of those features will be available in the new
release, but require a feature that is only available in Java 6 ... the
ability to open the default browser from within a Java application.

How can you prepare? If you already have Java 6 on your machine, you
are ready to go and do not have to do anything. If you have Java 5,
however, you will want to download and install the Java 6 runtime
environment. How can you tell? If you are on a Windows machine, you
can open the "Run ..." command line window from the Start Menu and type
in the command:

javaws -viewer

This will open the Java Web Start cache viewer which will open two
windows: one named Java Cache Viewer and the other named Java Control
Panel. When those open, close the Java Cache Viewer and then click the
Java tab on the Java Control Panel. On that panel, there should be a
button named "View" that will show you a list of one or more versions of
Java currently installed on your machine. You may have several, but you
are looking for one that is listed as Platform = 1.6 (which is Java 6).
If you only have Platform = 1.5 entries, then you only have Java 5 and
will need to download and install a Java 6 runtime environment.

If you need to do that go to:

http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp

On that page there are a number of red buttons that say "Download" ...
but there will be only one button that says "Download JRE"
If you click that link, you will be able to download and install the
Java Runtime Enviroment onto your machine. That version will run the
existing version of Remote Coral but will also be what you need when we
release the new version of Java later this week.

Note: if you are on a Linux, Solaris, or Mac OS X platform, you can
easily tell what version of Java you are running by opening a command
line window and issuing the command: 'java -version'.

Let me know if you have any questions,

John