How to drag and drop an email from Outlook Express (with example code)

Question

Hi,
It is possible to drag a mail from Outlook Express and drop it on the desktop, and the file created is a .eml, which is a text file.
If I drop it into a Java application, no DataFlavor is provided to make the data transfer possible.
As the data to transfer is a text, it should be possible to drop it.
How to make a DataFlavor available and recover the text as a stream of characters?
Example code
The small application below shows the MIME type of the data that is about to be dropped. If you drag an icon from the desktop, a type will be displayed; if you drag an Outlook Express mail, no type will be displayed.
Thanks.
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.datatransfer.DataFlavor;
import java.awt.dnd.DropTarget;
import java.awt.dnd.DropTargetDragEvent;
import java.awt.dnd.DropTargetDropEvent;
import java.awt.dnd.DropTargetEvent;
import java.awt.dnd.DropTargetListener;
import java.util.List;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JTree;
public class TestSDN extends JFrame {
    void run () {
        JLabel lab = new JLabel();
        lab.setPreferredSize (new Dimension (100, 100));
        lab.setOpaque(true);
        lab.setBackground(Color.RED);   
        getContentPane().add (lab);
        new DropTarget(lab, new DropTargetListener(){
            public void dragEnter(DropTargetDragEvent dtde) {
                System.out.println("dragEnter DataFlavors="+dtde.getCurrentDataFlavors().length);
                for (DataFlavor df: dtde.getCurrentDataFlavors())
                    System.out.println("DataFlavor MIME type="+df.getMimeType());
            public void dragExit(DropTargetEvent arg0) {
            public void dragOver(DropTargetDragEvent arg0) {
            public void drop(DropTargetDropEvent arg0) {
            public void dropActionChanged(DropTargetDragEvent arg0) {
        pack();
        setVisible (true);
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        new TestSDN().run();
}Edited by: JavaGame on Jan 29, 2009 9:56 AM
Edited by: JavaGame on Jan 29, 2009 9:57 AM

Answer 1

It might just be Microsoft not using standards? I remember having a similar situation - I had an application that could have a zip entry fron 7-zip drag-and-dropped into it (came over as plain text, or maybe an InputStream, can't remember), but when you drill into a zip file with Windows (Vista at least), and try to drag-and-drop a zip entry from Windows Explorer, Java shows no dataflavors available. I just assumed Microsoft wasn't exporting the zip entry in any standard format (such as plain text).
Sorry, I know that wasn't very helpful, just thought I'd share a similar experience. :)