[Openjnlp-devel] Handling System.err (and System.out)

[Christopher H. <he...@ez...>]

I've noticed we tend to lose a lot of information written to System.err (and 
in some cases to System.out).  System.err is especially important, since 
right now loading and/or applications can fail silently, leaving the user (or 
even the developer :-) ) to wonder what the heck happened, and probably 
abandoning OpenJNLP abandoning for other solutions.

Here's what I propose to do as a solution:
  1) when running from CLI, redirect application System.err/System.out to 
OpenJNLP's System.err/System.out.  Preface the messages with "[appname]" as 
is currently done with the GUI console.

  2) when running from the GUI, instead of copying System.err to the console 
or bitbucket, we should be displaying all messages immediately.  I suggest 
popping up a JOptionPane that displays the System.err stream for that source 
in a scrollable JTextArea.  The user can then examine the message, and close 
the pane or leave it open.  If left open, it will receive any further 
messages (although if new messages arrive after some period of quiesence, the 
pane should be flashed, beeped, brought to the top or otherwise highlighted); 
if closed, it will be reopened on the next message.

Anyway, does this sound like an acceptable solution?  If so, I'll start on it 
shortly.

				Chris