System and method for applet management

Abstract

A system and method for applet management utilizes a dubuild utility to form a core distribution unit and component split distribution units to separately package various features of an application to be downloaded on an as requested basis to a browser running on a client computer from a server computer. To start the application the core distribution unit embedded in a core Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) page is first downloaded from the server computer to the client computer and cached in a designated area of storage on the client computer according to HTML tags. The core distribution unit includes core user features, a background frame, and a component manager. The core user features include a menu supported by the background frame to provide selection of additional features provided by the component split distribution units. Once a user selects a requested feature from the menu provided by other than the core distribution unit, the component manager first determines whether a component split distribution unit has already been downloaded and if not, the component split distribution unit containing the requested feature is downloaded from the server computer to the client computer. Following standard split distribution unit design, the browser caches the component split distribution unit with the core distribution unit as an update to the core distribution unit. Application files of the component split distribution unit then run along with the browser and application files of the core distribution unit to provide the requested features.