Creating a Self-Contained Jar

[Gad Flailimbs]

I've looked around and read some stuff but I'm still confused on how to get my Jar file to be self-contained. I'm using Eclipse with separate Source and Class folders. I use about 40 different images while running my program and they're all in different folders.

I've tried:

getClass().getResource("Images/character.gif")

I've also read about some ClassLoader you can use to get a similar effect:

ClassLoader cldr = this.getClass().getClassLoader();
ImageIcon area2 = cldr.getResource("Maps/area2.png");

Neither of these seem to work. I've tried putting all the files in the source and bin folders. Regardless of all of this I still can't seem to get it to work properly. The Jar's just won't function without those folders near them even though I include the folders & files in the jar when I create it.

What do I need to do to get this to work?

[Ulf Dittmer]

You'll need to start the path with a slash, as in

java.net.URL imgURL = getClass().getResource("/Images/character.gif");
ImageIcon icon = new ImageIcon(imgURL);

[I Wayan Saryada]

Hi,

You can also use:

java.awt.image.BufferedImage image = javax.imageio.ImageIO.read(getClass().getResource("/Images/character.gif"));

[Gad Flailimbs]

How about if I want to read in a text file from the jar? I've found that some constructors for Readers don't like reading from URLs that getClass().getResource("maps.txt") provide.

Would I use something like the following:
getClass().getResource("maps.txt").getPath(); ?

I think the class I'm using for reading files is the Scanner but I'll have to check on that.