Your own Java scratch card!

The Broken Plank is proud to present the Java scratch card. Feel free to copy it for your own pages. It can be easily customized to your needs. Here is a simple example of the scratch card in action. You need a Java-enabled browser to see this.

You can choose the first picture shown, and the picture that gets revealed. You can also change the text at the top of the scratch card, and optionally make it link somewhere. The text at the bottom links to our site. It can be changed too, if you have a "key". We will issue you a key if you submit an article to us and we publish it, or if you otherwise contribute to the value of our site.

To use the Java scratch card on your own site, follow these simple steps:

• Pick a "before" picture and an "after" picture. These should be the same size. They also need to be in JPEG format (ending in ".jpg"). Be aware that the very top and bottom of the pictures will be hidden by text in the scratch card.
• Place the two pictures in a directory on your web site.
• Download the Java file scratch.class to the same directory as the the two pictures.
• You now need to put some code into the webpage where you want to display the scratch card. You can use the following form to generate the code.

  "before" picture
  "after" picture
  Width of pictures
  Height of pictures
  Text to appear at top
  Click "Generate code". Code for your page will appear here.

• If you want to make further customization, simply submit an inspired article to dalek@briefcase.com (we would also appreciate bug reports sent to this address).