[Herts] Java challenge

[Andrew Benham]

Now that June is here, I thought someone might fancy a challenge to 
occupy them during the cold wet afternoons :-)

If you point your web browser at   http://www.northernrock.co.uk/my/
and click on "log in" on the right-hand side, then, assuming that
you have a Java plugin, JavaScript enabled, and allow popups from
'ww6.northernrock.com' and 'ww7.northernrock.com', you'll be
greeted with a Java applet.

The applet has a text box to enter a Customer ID Number.  But, on every
Unix/Linux system I've tried with it, the font used for user input is
far too tall for the text box.  If you try entering "ABCDEFG", you'll
probably just see the top 2 or 3 row of pixels for the user input.
It isn't just the login screen that exhibits this, but unless you have a
Northern Rock account you won't be able to see further.
It's a right pain to use the application when you can't really see what
you've typed - have I entered £100.00 or £19999 ?
The fonts are OK with that "W*nd*ws" platform and the Sun JRE, but it 
breaks my heart that I have to use Gatesware for this one application.

This is something that I've been looking at, on and off, for a couple of 
years.  I've installed a BCI-enabled version of FreeType, installed the
M$ TrueType fonts and configured the Sun 1.4.2 JRE to see them.  But I
still can't see the user input properly - either I need more fonts, or
my fonts aren't scaling properly, or ....

So much for "write once, run everywhere".
Or is Java "write once, run away screaming" ?

So, if anyone fancies a challenge I'd be pleased to hear their thoughts.
Or their solution even.

-- 
Andrew Benham         adsb at adsb.co.uk
Southgate, London N14, United Kingdom

The gates in my computer are AND OR and NOT, not "Bill"