jar file help please

[Justin Fox]

jar cmvf manifest.txt jahok.jar *


why wont it keep my images in the jar file, if my jar is in the same folder as the images they show up, but when i move the jar to desktop , it doesnt draw, or read from files its supposed to...

Thanks,


Justin
[ February 05, 2007: Message edited by: Bear Bibeault ]

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

Do you use Class/ClassLoader.getResourceXXX() to load the images, which will work out of a jar? Or do you use FileInputStream, file: URLs, or something similar, which won't?

[Justin Fox]

i have no clue what either of those are...

i just said;

    
 
Image logo;
 
logo = new ImageIcon("pic.GIF").getImage();
 
// then draw it in paintComponent
 

i thought when the jar compresses it, it stays with that exe. jar
for ever, like a copy of that .GIF file

am I wrong?

thanks,


Justin

[Jesper de Jong]

The API documentation of the constructor of ImageIcon says:

public ImageIcon(String filename)

...

Parameters:
filename - a String specifying a filename or path

So it is looking for a file with the specified name. If you don't specify a directory (as you did), it will look for the file in the current directory. If you put your file inside a JAR, then it will not find the file.

Have a look at the API documentation for ImageIcon. It has another constructor that takes an URL. You could use that to load the image from a JAR file like this:

URL url = MyClass.class.getResource("pic.GIF");
ImageIcon icon = new ImageIcon(url);

[Justin Fox]

URL url = MyClass.class.getResource("pic.GIF");

so this code will make the main class look for the pic inside
the jar file?

if so then thats what i need, however, what i dont need is
the jar looking for a file in a certain directory, what i need
is for the jar to run the same on different computers...

Thanks Again

Justin