有没有办法从 html href URI 启动特定的 java class ？

Question

The scenario is: I'm trying to creating web pages accessing PhET offline simulations. They have HTML5 simulations which are great and no problems to run in my local machine using a browser; and java simulations which require java. Related Java simulations are packaged in a jar files. For example, four simulations of nuclear physics are packaged in a jar file named "nuclear-physics_all.jar".

Extracting this jar file, I can see a file "jar-launcher.properties" which defines what I can choose if I directly run java -jar nuclear-physics_all.jar .The file content is:

$ more jar-launcher.properties 
#created by edu.colorado.phet.buildtools.java.JavaBuildCommand
#Fri Aug 09 20:00:55 MDT 2013
project.name=nuclear-physics
project.flavor.alpha-decay.title=Alpha Decay
project.flavor.radioactive-dating-game.mainclass=edu.colorado.phet.nuclearphysics.RadioactiveDatingGameApplication
project.flavor.beta-decay.args=
project.flavor.radioactive-dating-game.title=Radioactive Dating Game
project.flavor.nuclear-fission.args=
project.flavor.nuclear-fission.title=Nuclear Fission
project.flavor.beta-decay.title=Beta Decay
project.flavor.alpha-decay.args=
project.flavor.radioactive-dating-game.args=
project.flavor.nuclear-fission.mainclass=edu.colorado.phet.nuclearphysics.NuclearFissionApplication
project.flavor.beta-decay.mainclass=edu.colorado.phet.nuclearphysics.BetaDecayApplication
project.flavor.alpha-decay.mainclass=edu.colorado.phet.nuclearphysics.AlphaDecayApplication

Using command line I can launch one of the simulation (eg, "Alpha Decay") in this jar file instead of the chooser: java -cp./nuclear-physics_all.jar edu.colorado.phet.nuclearphysics.AlphaDecayApplication

Here is my question:
In the simulation list these four simulations (Alpha Decay, Beta Decay, Nuclear Fission, Radioactive Dating Game) are listed separately and I wish to launch exactly the one user clicks. However in web page (offline version, so the uri will be started with file://) I can only use href="file:///<path>/nuclear-physics_all.jar" which will launch the chooser not the simulation I want. Is there a way to launch exactly the one simulation (class) with file URI?

Answer 1

One hack'ish solution: obviously, you are able in your setup to run a JAR file, just without parameters. That JAR file is configured to invoke a specific functionality.

So:

• extract that JAR file
• set a different Main class in the manifest, see for details
• build a new JAR file from that modified content
• repeat

In other words: the trick is that you can "run" a JAR file because you specify which class it should invoke. When you know which main classes you want, you can duplicate the JAR, just with different Main classes to invoke.