Get Images from jar. getResource() not working

Question

I've read some of the posts in the forum and I've tried the solutions but still cant get the images in my program.
I'll write all the things I've tried (All of them works fine when I run them from bluej):
1- The code used in the jar files in demo folder of jdk:
/** Inside the main class: */
private static ResourceBundle resources;  
    static {
        try {
            resources = ResourceBundle.getBundle("resources.Recursos", Locale.getDefault());
        } catch (MissingResourceException mre) {
            JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(new JFrame(), "ResourceBundle not found","Error",JOptionPane.ERROR_MESSAGE);
            System.exit(1);
public String getResourceString(String nm)
        String str;
        try {       
            str = resources.getString(nm);   
              } catch (MissingResourceException mre) {       
            str = null;
        return str;
    public URL getResource(String key)
        String name = getResourceString(key);
        if (name != null)
            URL url = getClass().getResource(name); //  Here is the exception
            return url;  
        return null;
    public ImageIcon loadImage(String image_name)
        URL image_url = null;    
        try
            image_url = getResource(image_name);             
            if (image_url != null)
                return new ImageIcon(image_url);
            else
            return null;                  
        }catch(Exception e)
            JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(new JFrame(), e.getMessage() + "In load Image","Error",JOptionPane.ERROR_MESSAGE);
            return null;
/** Inside the constructor */
abrirButton = new JButton(loadImage("open"));
}//End of the class}
The ResourceBundle is a file named: Recursos.properties and it's in a folder inside the folder of my *.class and *.java And have this information:
Title=Recursos
ElementTreeFrameTitle=Elements
ViewportBackingStore=false
open=resources/open24.gif
save=resources/saveAs24.gif
cut=resources/cut24.gif
copy=resources/copy24.gif
paste=resources/paste24.gif
analisis=resources/bean24.gif
This one, runs with the jar, but the images are not in the buttons and I get the Dialog message telling me that there was an error in loadImage. Check that method. I used this dialogs to track the error and the exception it's generated by:
URL url = getClass().getResource(name);
in public URL getResource(String key) method.
2- I also tried to follow the instructions of this article that describes how to get resources from jars:
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-07-1998/jw-07-jar-p2.html
This is the first page of the article:
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-07-1998/jw-07-jar.html
And I did something like this:
/** Inside constructor */
abrirButton = new JButton(new ImageIcon(getImageFromJAR("Imagenes/open24.gif")));
/** Inside of my main class */
public Image getImageFromJAR(String fileName)
           try{
           if( fileName == null ) return null;          
           Image image = null;
           Toolkit toolkit = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit();          
            image = toolkit.getImage( getClass().getResource(fileName) );           
            return image;
            }catch(Exception exc){
                JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(new JFrame(), "Exception loading the image","Error",JOptionPane.ERROR_MESSAGE);
                return null;
...The images in this one are in the folder Imagenes inside the folder of my *.class and *.java
This one work fine in bluej too, but the jar... It doesn't even start.
3- And the last one.
abrirButton = new JButton(new ImageIcon(getClass().getResource("Imagenes/open24.gif"));Works fine in bluej, not running in jar.
Am I doing something wrong? Please somebody help me.
thanks in advance

Answer 1

Are you putting the image files inside the jar? If you are, then use "jar tf jarfile.jar" to display the contents of the jar and make sure the files are there and inside the right directory. If you are not, then you can not use getClass().getResource() from a jar file because it will look inside the jar file.
If you are getting an error message, please post it.