Splash Screen Inconsistent between CLI and JAR specification

Question

Unlike just about any other java API, the SplashScreen API treats jar-launched and command-line-launched invocations of the same code differently
According to [the Splash Screen Tutorial|http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/misc/splashscreen.html]
a command-line invocation of a Splash Screen application would take the form
java -splash:images/splash.gif SplashDemo
whereas a jar-invocation would allow the splash screen to be specified in the jar manifest with the notation
SplashScreen-Image: images/splash.gif
This doesn't APPEAR to be inconsistent but the implementation is in fact not consistent.
In the jar-manifest approach the splash screen image is searched relative to the classpath implied by the JAR whereas the command-line version is searched relative to the current working directory. The documentation fails to explain this leading to lots of headscratching when, for example, a Splash Screen works right in a runnable jar but not from an IDE such as Eclipse. If, instead, the image was loaded relative to the classpath (getResource()) then the jar and the command line would work the same.
At the very least, there should be an additional command line switch supporting this classpath-based loading functionality from the command line or failing that, better documentation of what is going on. Neither the tutorial nor the javadoc explains the CLI syntax sufficiently. I spent several hours of headscratching trying to understand this and I'm by no means a newbie.
Edited by: user549053 on Nov 10, 2011 4:39 PM

Answer 1

user549053 wrote:
The only thing I can wonder is: why do you want command line invocation at all?Simple. In the field, I only want jar invocation. In development, I want invocation in Eclipse - which, under the covers uses command-line invocation.Good point, but then I wonder why you care that the splash screen works or doesn't work in Eclipse. As long as it works in the field. In fact, I would probably build in a way to disable the splash screen when running from the IDE myself - apparently it isn't even needed to do any work to make that happen ;)
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Complaining about documentation here isn't going to do you much good.There's lots of confusion about this on the internet. Just google it. I didn't find anything that gave me the answer, just references to Oracle's documentation which doesn't answer the confusion. That's now been remedied, though, by me:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6906267/debug-splashscreen-from-eclipse-without-generating-the-jar/8087881#8087881
I thank you for your contribution. It is exactly this personal effort that keeps the Java community going...
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Oracle really should do something about this.... because Oracle certainly will not. Again: complaining in this forum does nothing. Because like StackOverflow this is a user to user forum, not an Oracle tech support site. It won't be read and it won't end up on a todo list. Sad but true.