Thanks for the previous advice and to all who have had a go at Sgt PCMan (www.virtualpsyclab.net). Maybe I can ask for a bit more advice and issue a small challenge?

I've had quite a few people try this out and hardly any have been able to complete the experiment. This might be due to boredom or lack of motivation, it does take 25min, but everyone signs-up with their eyes open. However, due to the feedback I got, I suspect it may be due to task difficulty so I've put in a practise phase so participants can get the hang of the keyboard controls. Even so, it has to be said, the completion rate is dismal.

My question, is it really too hard? If so, can you think of a good way to help explain this to a non-gamer so they might be able to pick up the ideas more quickly. Maybe they could play another game with similar controls before starting - I could link them to it from my site.

My challenge, if you would like to try the game, can you complete it 100%? Obviously during development I know how this works so I have a distorted view of the difficulty level. It would be really useful to know that it is possible to play the game to completion when coming at it for the first time.

Chrs, Steve.

Well, it is slightly scary, but only slightly for "artistic" effect. I should say though, no game characters, clones or otherwise, were actually hurt in the making of this game 

Hi, I'm an experimental psychologist interested in using games as a medium for the study of behaviour. I've had a go at something which passes as a game (just!) and which should produce results with some scientific value. It is based on well established principles that have been used in traditional laboratory studies of learning over many years. If you'd like to take a look it can be found at www.virtualpsyclab.net At the end there is a box for comments and if you've got anything to say, from a gaming or participant PoV you can add something there or contact me by email at the address on the virtualpsyclab site.

Chrs, Steve

OK, sorted, using # in the jar file name was causing the problem.

Hi, this seems to be a common problem but, despite looking at a lot of examples, I'm still stuck. Any help would be much appreciated.

Whenever I try to run my applet from a web page I keep getting the dreaded error

load: class MainExperiment.class not found.
java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: MainExperiment.class
   at sun.plugin2.applet.Applet2ClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
   at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2ClassLoader.loadClass0(Unknown Source)
   at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
   at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
   at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2ClassLoader.loadCode(Unknown Source)
   at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2Manager.createApplet(Unknown Source)
   at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2Manager$AppletExecutionRunnable.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Exception: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: MainExperiment.class

It runs fine in Eclipse. So I export it to a jar called we#3.jar with the following contents:

META-INF/MANIFEST.MF
.project
.classpath
CSSprite.class
MyAffine.class
NumberKey.class
NameKey.class
Sprite.class
PacMan.class
MainExperiment$CSPosition.class
MainExperiment$ExperimentStatus.class
MainExperiment$HuntingStatus.class
MainExperiment$TrialStatus.class
MainExperiment$dbThread.class
MainExperiment$resourceThread.class
MainExperiment.class
TrialData.class
BlockList.class
ExperimentData.class
TextInfo.class
BufferedImageKey.class
GameCmd.class
MySQLDB.class
TrialList.class
SoundClips.class
USSound.class
IMySQLExperimentDB.class
BlockData.class
MySQLDB1.class
files/spacestation.jpg

In the same directory as the jar file I have my web page which has the applet code:-

<!--"CONVERTED_APPLET"-->
<!-- HTML CONVERTER -->
<object
    classid = "clsid:8AD9C840-044E-11D1-B3E9-00805F499D93"
    codebase = "http://java.sun.com/update/1.6.0/jinstall-6u23-windows-i586.cab#Version=6,0,0,5"
    WIDTH = "1024" HEIGHT = "768" >
    <PARAM NAME = CODE VALUE = "MainExperiment.class" >
    <PARAM NAME = ARCHIVE VALUE = "we#3.jar" >
    <param name = "type" value = "application/x-java-applet;version=1.6">
    <param name = "scriptable" value = "false">
    <comment>
   <embed
            type = "application/x-java-applet;version=1.6" \
            CODE = "MainExperiment.class" \
            ARCHIVE = "we#3.jar" \
            WIDTH = "1024" \
            HEIGHT = "768"
       scriptable = false
       pluginspage = "http://java.sun.com/products/plugin/index.html#download">
       <noembed>
            </noembed>
   </embed>
    </comment>
</object>
<!--
<APPLET CODE = "MainExperiment.class" ARCHIVE = "we#3.jar" WIDTH = "1024" HEIGHT = "768">
</APPLET>
-->
<!--"END_CONVERTED_APPLET"-->

Any suggestions for what I'm doing wrong here? Thanks, stegzzz

Ah, OK, I see what you mean SteveyO and Mickelukas. I'll look into URLConnection.

Chrs, Steve.
 

SteveyO erm, no intention to introduce a security risk, just to optimise the downloading so it can take place at a convenient time in the game rather than cause delays on startup if loaded via the html applet archive tag.

How does the what I'm doing differ and make a security risk?

Thanks Woogley, I'm connected

Hi, yes BURI.resolve("mysql-connector-java-5.1.14-bin.jar").toURL() does seem to return the correct name. And applying getName() to
Class.forName("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver", true, cl) results in com.mysql.jdbc.Driver which I took to indicate the driver was loaded correctly by forName().

But, still get the error....

Hi, I'm trying to load the mysql connector jar file "on-the-fly" but getting a "no suitable driver" message when I try to get the connection.

I've got an applet sitting on my server along with the mysql jar file and when I run the applet from a web page with the jar named as an archive it all works fine. But, to shorten the load time I want to load the mysql jar later in the program while the user is paused reading some instructions. So here's the code:

URL BURL=getCodeBase();
BURI = BURL.toURI();
URLClassLoader cl = null;
cl = new URLClassLoader(new URL[] {BURI.resolve("mysql-connector-java-5.1.14-bin.jar").toURL()});
Class.forName("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver", true, cl);
//Class.forName("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver", true, cl).newInsance();
//DriverManager.registerDriver(null);
Connection C=null;
C=DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:mysql://myserver.com/mydb",un,pw);

The comment lines are among variations I've tried but I keep ending with the same problem when getConnection is called "no suitable driver found".

Any ideas?

Thanks, Steve

  Thanks KLite did the trick, now I can edit my screen capture with movie maker, just the ticket!

Hi, tried this and it records pretty good but wanted to edit using movie maker. MM cannot import due to lack of codec, so I installed the xvid codec you referred to but still no joy. Any ideas?

Thanks, Steve