I want to drag and drop a file to a JText area with its file icon

Question

I want to drag and drop a file to a JText area with its file icon , but the problem is I cant show the file icon.
Anyone knows this.
this is my code.
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.awt.datatransfer.DataFlavor;
import java.awt.datatransfer.Transferable;
import java.awt.dnd.DnDConstants;
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.io.File;
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.filechooser.FileSystemView;
public class FileDrag extends JFrame implements DropTargetListener {
DropTarget dt;
File file;
JTextArea ta;
JLabel lbl;
Graphics g;
ImageIcon tmpIcon;
public FileDrag() {
super("Drop Test");
setSize(300, 300);
getContentPane().add(
new JLabel("Drop a list from your file chooser here:"),
BorderLayout.NORTH);
ta = new JTextArea();
ta.setBackground(Color.white);
getContentPane().add(ta);
dt = new DropTarget(ta, this);
setVisible(true);
public void dragEnter(DropTargetDragEvent dtde) {
System.out.println("Drag Enter");
public void dragExit(DropTargetEvent dte) {
System.out.println("Source: " + dte.getSource());
System.out.println("Drag Exit");
public void dragOver(DropTargetDragEvent dtde) {
System.out.println("Drag Over");
public void dropActionChanged(DropTargetDragEvent dtde) {
System.out.println("Drop Action Changed");
public void drop(DropTargetDropEvent dtde) {
FileSystemView view = FileSystemView.getFileSystemView();
JLabel testb;
Icon icon = null;
Toolkit tk;
Dimension dim;
BufferedImage buff = null;
try {
Transferable tr = dtde.getTransferable();
DataFlavor[] flavors = tr.getTransferDataFlavors();
for (int i = 0; i < flavors.length; i++) {
System.out.println("Possible flavor: " + flavors.getMimeType());
if (flavors.isFlavorJavaFileListType()) {
dtde.acceptDrop(DnDConstants.ACTION_COPY);
ta.setText("Successful file list drop.\n\n");
java.util.List list = (java.util.List) tr.getTransferData(flavors);
for (int j = 0; j < list.size(); j++) {
System.out.println(list.get(j));
file = (File) list.get(j);
icon = view.getSystemIcon(file);
ta.append(list.get(j) + "\n");
ta.append("\n");
tk = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit();
dim = tk.getBestCursorSize(icon.getIconWidth(), icon.getIconHeight());
buff = new BufferedImage(dim.width, dim.height, BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_ARGB);
icon.paintIcon(ta, buff.getGraphics(), 10, 10);
repaint();
dtde.dropComplete(true);
return;
System.out.println("Drop failed: " + dtde);
dtde.rejectDrop();
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
dtde.rejectDrop();
public static void main(String args[]) {
new FileDrag();
}

Answer 1

This appears to be a long-standing bug:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=634720
and the accepted workaround is stated in comment 11.
Oddly, it's possible to do the reverse, i.e. drag multiple eml files from Explorer to a TB folder.