Is there a trick to pasting GIF file or is this a bug?

Question

I am using 1.4.2 and the following little program is lifted from one of the TechTip articles ( http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/JDCTechTips/2003/tt0318.html#1 ) for illustration purposes.
The problem is that GIF image pasted from the system clipboard is completely distorted... (it doesn't matter whether the image is originally copied to the clipboard from MS Paint or Adobe PhotoShop).
Here is a link to what I'm talking about:
http://home.comcast.net/~viravan/Capture.png
here is the code:
DrawImage.java
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.awt.datatransfer.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class DragImage {
   public static void main(String args[])  {
      JFrame frame = new JFrame("Drag Image");
      frame.setDefaultCloseOperation( JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
      Container contentPane = frame.getContentPane();
      final Clipboard clipboard = frame.getToolkit().getSystemClipboard();
      final JLabel label = new JLabel();
      if (args.length > 0)  {
         Icon icon = new ImageIcon(args[0]);
         label.setIcon(icon);
      label.setTransferHandler(new ImageSelection());
      MouseListener mouseListener = new MouseAdapter()  {
         public void mousePressed(MouseEvent e)  {
            JComponent comp = (JComponent) e.getSource();
            TransferHandler handler = comp.getTransferHandler();
            handler.exportAsDrag( comp, e, TransferHandler.COPY);
      label.addMouseListener(mouseListener);
      JScrollPane pane = new JScrollPane(label);
      contentPane.add(pane, BorderLayout.CENTER);
      JButton copy = new JButton("Copy");
      copy.addActionListener(new ActionListener()  {
         public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)  {  
            Action copyAction = TransferHandler.getCopyAction();
            copyAction.actionPerformed( new ActionEvent( label, ActionEvent.ACTION_PERFORMED, (String) copyAction.getValue(Action.NAME), EventQueue.getMostRecentEventTime(), 0));
      JButton clear = new JButton("Clear");
      clear.addActionListener(new ActionListener()  {
         public void actionPerformed( ActionEvent actionEvent)  {
            label.setIcon(null);
      JButton paste = new JButton("Paste");
      paste.addActionListener(new ActionListener()  {
         public void actionPerformed( ActionEvent actionEvent)  {  
            Action pasteAction = TransferHandler.getPasteAction();
            pasteAction.actionPerformed( new ActionEvent(label, ActionEvent.ACTION_PERFORMED, (String) pasteAction.getValue(Action.NAME), EventQueue.getMostRecentEventTime(), 0));
      JPanel p = new JPanel();
      p.add(copy);
      p.add(clear);
      p.add(paste);
      contentPane.add(p, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
      frame.setSize(300, 300);
      frame.show();
}ImageSelection.java
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.image.*;
import java.awt.datatransfer.*;
import java.io.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class ImageSelection extends TransferHandler {
   private static final DataFlavor flavors[] = {
      DataFlavor.imageFlavor
   public int getSourceActions(JComponent c)  {
      return TransferHandler.COPY;
   public boolean canImport( JComponent comp, DataFlavor flavor[])  {
      if (!(comp instanceof JLabel)) {
         return false;
      for (int i=0, n=flavor.length;i<n;i++) {
         for (int j=0, m=flavors.length;j<m;j++) {
            if (flavor.equals(flavors[j])) {
return true;
return false;
public Transferable createTransferable( JComponent comp) {
if (comp instanceof JLabel) {
JLabel label = (JLabel) comp;
Icon icon = label.getIcon();
if (icon instanceof ImageIcon) {
final Image image = ((ImageIcon) icon).getImage();
final JLabel source = label;
Transferable transferable = new Transferable() {
public Object getTransferData( DataFlavor flavor) {
if (isDataFlavorSupported(flavor)) {
return image;
return null;
public DataFlavor[] getTransferDataFlavors() {
return flavors;
public boolean isDataFlavorSupported( DataFlavor flavor) {
return flavor.equals( DataFlavor.imageFlavor);
return transferable;
return null;
public boolean importData( JComponent comp, Transferable t) {
if (comp instanceof JLabel) {
JLabel label = (JLabel) comp;
if (t.isDataFlavorSupported(flavors[0])) {
try {
Image image = (Image) t.getTransferData(flavors[0]);
ImageIcon icon = new ImageIcon(image);
label.setIcon(icon);
return true;
} catch (UnsupportedFlavorException ignored) {
} catch (IOException ignored) {
return false;
Note that pasting .JPG or .PNG files with the same program works fine!
;o)
V.V.

Answer 1

Just to make sure I understood you, I copied gifs from IE to the clipboard and then used your program to paste them into your app. Right??? Here are the steps for MS-Paint:
1) activate MS Paint,
2) load a small gif file (any file will do)
3) CTRL-A to select the file in MS-Paint, CTRL-C to copy to clipboard
4) activate the java program
5) click the paste button in the java program
Here are the steps in PhotoShop:
1) activate PhotoShop
2) load a GIF file
3) CTRL A to select the entire image or use the tool to select a smaller area and CTRL-C to copy to clipboard
4 & 5 are same as above
V.V.