Utilising a file association in a Java application

Question

I am in the process of writing a cross platform Swing based application in which I want to utilize a file association which has been registered with the OS.

So iv got to the point where I can click on a file and my app loads, but what I need to know is how I can get my application to know where the file is that launched it and then query the contents.

Is there something further I have to do with the file association registration? Or can Java do this for me?

Answer 1

I'm not positive, but I'd expect that the name of the file you're processing by file click will end up in the arguments to your main() method. Have you tried/checked that?

Answer 2

If this is on Windows (you didn't specify):

In the registry wherever you specified your application path for the file type registered to it, add to "%1" . This is a special parameter Windows will fill in with the path of the file that was clicked. So your registry entry would look something like c:\\path\\to\\app.exe "%1"

Answer 3

一种方法是让文件关联通过脚本或批处理文件运行Java应用程序，并让批处理文件将文件的路径名作为命令行参数，环境变量或Java属性传递。

Answer 4

Extensions can be linked to applications, you can setup the registry keys during installation. Which keys you need is documented here:

http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B185453&x=6&y=11

From java you can't access the windows registry in a direct way. Using Runtime you could do something like that http://www.rgagnon.com/javadetails/java-0480.html

Answer 5

There're two commands on Windows that can help, assoc and ftype, so that you needn't do the dirty laundry to manipulate registry. Invoke the commands using, say, java.lang.Process. http://www.rgagnon.com/javadetails/java-0592.html