Both NetBeans and Eclipse offer a mechanism to update "plug-ins" or "modules" from the web.
This concept has intrigued me, and I would like to implement something similar in my own programs. I'm thinking of something that would read a text file on a webserver to check for updates to my program or its plug-ins.
However, I've never done anything like this, and I'm not even sure what classes I would start to look at. I gues my first questions would be:
[1] Is there a "standard" way to implement this type of functionality?
[2] How do I access a text file that resides at a URL, such as a web address?
[3] How do I download a JAR from the web and execute its main method from within a running
Java application?
Thanks,
Landon
