Applet param标签的用途是什么？

Question

Forgive me if this question is stupid, however what is the point of the param tag? I have watched videos and read tutorials and pretty much understand what it does, but don't understand the why? It seems the user can't use this param tag to input data, but the programmer sets the values (from what I've seen). So why is it used when we can simply do all that in the .java file? A practical example would be appreciated, thanks!

Answer 1

You don't have to recompile anything if the param changes. You can just edit html with text editor and voilà! Also reusability of code with different params on different pages.

Basically it's the same question as "why do we need *.properties file when you can hardcode all the properties as public static String fields in some class?".

Answer 2

A simple example might be a general-purpose menu applet. You don't want to have the menu existing in code, because you might want to change it or have different menus on different web pages. The menu to display can easily be defined in param tags.

Answer 3

1. You can have a component that displays advertisements/captchas/whatever and requires a public key. The same component (without recompiling) can be embedded on several sites. The public key is passes as a parameter.

2. The applets' look-and-feel (background colour, font sizes, etc.) can be customized to better match overall web-page layout.

3. Marvelous flying unicorn animation can have customizable speed and unicorn colour.