Howdy, Pkinuk! First of all, welcome to JavaRanch and good luck with your assignment!
What is non-networked mode? dose it mean the server and client will run on same mechine?
Not really. In fact, the server must not run in non-networked mode (or standalone), otherwise you'll fail.
Basically, the application that you are going to create must be able to run in 3 modes: client, server and standalone. When the client runs, the server must be already running. You are going to allow the user, via a GUI that must use Swing elements, to perform some business operations that are listed in your instructions.html file. In this mode, the client only makes requests to the server, and the server deals with the data that is in the file that was sent to you, and will have to guarantee data integrity via the locking mechanism. This is the client mode. In server mode, the only thing that you have to do is start the server, so that it can receive requests from a client and handle the data that is in the database. Essentially, you will have to use either RMI or Sockets and the operations that you will offer to the client will depend on your choice between thin client and thick client. If you want to have a thick client (which is the case of my application), you'll end up having a remote interface that looks almost like the interface that was provided to you. If you want to have a thin client, you will end up having a remote interface with some business methods (like search() or book()), and your client will use it to perform the operations that you must offer. And finally, in standalone mode, the data that was supposed to be handled by the server is handled locally, without the help of the server.
What is loopback networking?
I think
this might be helpful.
What dose it mean using single line argument that is permitted?
It means that your program must not require any properties when running it from the command line, other than the application mode. The only arguments that your program must allow are:
java -jar runme.jar server - this is to run the application in server mode
java -jar runme.jar alone - this is to run the application in standalone mode
java -jar runme.jar - this is to run the application in client mode
So the only arguments that your program has to expect are "server" and "alone".
Waht does it mean: this mode must use the database and GUI from the networked form, but must not use the network server code at all.
This is the standalone mode. It means that the data will not be handled by the server; instead, you'll have to create a code that is able to handle directly the data locally, without using the server code. It's important to remember that the locking mechanism must work in both server mode and in standalone mode, even though you'll have only one
Thread dealing with data.
And that's pretty much it. You'll still have other doubts during the development. One good tip is to use the Search of JavaRanch, since it is pretty likely that other people also had the same doubts that you will still have. The good news is that, about 85% of the things you have to know to finish the assignment can be found here. But, if you are not able to find your answer, feel free to come here and post your question. We'll do our best to try to help you!
