Accelerating application loading through staged downloads

Question

I'm developing a game that I will distribute using Java Web Start / JNLP.

Currently the fully packaged .jar is around 11mb, which is not too bad, but I'd still like to get the application responsive as quickly as possible, i.e. before everything is downloaded - in particular I'd like a splash screen during loading, then allow other resources to continue to load in the background after the title screen is loaded and displayed.

Also, I'd like my users to benefit from client-side caching of already downloaded files if possible. I'm keen to do this in a browser neutral / cross-platform way.

What is the best approach to achieve this kind of staged downloading?

Answer 1

Java WebStart allows for lazy downloading of non-essential jars so the main routines can start quickly. See http://download.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/guides/javaws/developersguide/syntax.html#resources