Java is MEVA-Lab's "strategic language".

Since it's advent more than sixteen years ago Java has had a tremendous success in industrial and business (web, server) applications.
It's a first choice OO (object oriented) language. Notwithstanding the complexity behind OO, multi-threading, memory model etc. it's semantic and syntactic definiteness make Java a excellent choice for teaching the first programming language.
Even the loss of confidence by Oracle's take over can't spoil Java's success yet.

In Albrecht Weinert's MEVA-Lab many Java applications and class libraries were made. Most of this work was done in the context of a powerful framework Frame4J (respectively its predecessor aWeinertBib). Some of these appliances — including industrial automation with Java, also of foreign users — did and do run uninterrupted for years, without causing any troubles.

The framework Frame4J is an open source project since September 2008. Most tools and applications were ported from the mentioned approved predecessor — do use Frame4J only for new developments.
[ documentation | sources | binaries, resources | install | tools ]

You'll find there also programmes supporting the generation and deployment of java software and of web-site content

• MakeIndex to generate or update file listings, optionally with generated thumb nails,
• FuR for putting the building blocks together,
• CVSkeys for aesthetic and problem-free export out of version control systems (both CVS or SVN),

as well as some others. If you install (Java and) Frame4J, you've got all that — and much much more.

Some hints
This article is translated to Serbo-Croatian language by Anja Skrba from Webhostinggeeks.com.

1.) File name's case

Case plays an important role in Java's case sensitive syntax and as important in Java style — for human programmers and for tools. Names of classes, interfaces and packages have to be mirrored exactly in the names of (sub-) directories and files. But case in file names, still causes trouble in the Internet: If just one server, proxy, router, browser or whatever in the chains thinks it knows better and changes case in an URL, you get troubles with a wrongly named downloaded file. Therefore single Java source or class files are rarely offered for direct download. The alternatives are access via version control (SVN) or providing archives (.zip or .jar).

2.) About .jar and .zip

Regarding their archive and compression functions both are equal. SUN just used the "world standard" .zip unchanged for .jar. (Alas, if only everybody would leave established standards untangled.) SUN just put some semantics on top; as the meaning of certain directories and files for the java runtime.
But some browser reject the downloading of Java archives even with "Save as" by right mouse.
If you had the framework Frame4J installed the tool UCopy gets you all types of files (including .class. .jar .css .var etc.).

3.) About Java - prerequisites (JDK, JRE)

The predecessor framework and Java code based on it require at least "Java 2" as JRE / JDK1.4.x or higher. But, as today no substantial objection is left, against using Java6, JDK1.6.0_23 or higher, all the (substantial) efforts and restrictions for Java2 backward compatibility have been dropped, as they are now just waste.
Many Java projects are at the threshold to do so or already did. So just consider Java 5 or 6 as required base. Frame4J requires Java6.

4.) About the framework's installation

To use the framework Frame4J just put the archive frame4j.jar into the jre-directory lib\ext\ of your Java installation as a so called "installed extension". (See downloads.)
If you just extract the (newest) file erg.zip into the base directory of your JDK installation (should be something like C:\programme\JDK\) you get the actual framework and all accessories, CommAPI, javaMail, JMX, GWT, Servlets, iText, linked documentation etc. in one step.

5.) Tools

After the framework installation according to hint 4 some useful framework based tools are available: Update, MakeIndex, UCopy, FuR, CVSkeys, ShowProps, ShowPorts etc.

6.) on XML

Since JDK / JRE 1.4.x the XML support belongs to Java's basic equipment. One exception is (was?) XSLT 2.0, that can be supplemented as Saxon 9, contained in erg.zip.

More hints may be found in Java-Tips in the document directory of the  MEVA-Lab
and in modern text books. Beginners might still find the (2001) "Java für Ingenieure" useful.