How to handle multiply properties.files in combined applications

Question

I have some applications bundled into one jar for each application. The applications make all use of a properties.file in it's own /resources/ folder within the jarfile.
To avoid running each application on the desktop with it's own JVM and as seperate programs, I wrote a menuprogram which can start the applications within a splitted pane. Left pand is a JTree menu, right side is the applicationspace. This way i have only one JVM active and all app's can be accessed from within a single window. This menu applications also has it's own properties.file.
I noticed that the applications now all use the same properties.file which is actually not correct. The file used is the one which belongs to the menu application.
So i have : menu.jar, app1.jar, app2.jar, appn.jar
The menu.jar is started and from within this application i run the other applications (jInternalFrames). All apps seems to see only the properties.file within the menu.jar IMHO because i create the objects from app1, app2 and appn from within the menu.
QUESTION:
How can i change the code to force each app.object to use the propsfile delivered in his own jar-file?
Here's a code snippet used in each application.
setPropertiesFileName("/resources/application.properties");
try {
is_ = getClass().getResourceAsStream(propertiesFileName);
props.load(is_);
catch(Exception e){
// Debug Props
setDEBUG_LEVEL(props.getProperty("DEBUG_LEVEL"));
setTRACE_ENABLED(props.getProperty("TRACE_ENABLED"));
...

Answer 1

You can do this, but is it generally a bad idea which can turn into a nightmare to manage.
Instead each application should use a different properties file. Is there a good reason every application proeprties must have the same name and path?