Exporting Project into a Runnable JAR File with PDF document

Question

I have project that I created and it contains a help button that opens a .pdf file with my documentation. The code for the button is the following

URL loc = Actions.class.getResource("Documentation/test.pdf");
            Runtime.getRuntime().exec("rundll32 url.dll,FileProtocolHandler " + loc);

When I run and execute my application using eclipse and click on the button it opens the document fine in adobe reader. After I export my project into a Runnable JAR File via eclipse and click on the button it doesn't do anything. Is there something that I need to add in order to make this work?

I just opened the jar file using 7zip and my test.pdf document does show up in there.

Answer 1

The default behavior and intentions behind a jar file are for packaging of files (Java) into a compressed format. If you want to have an executable type jar then you need to include a manifest file that specifies your main Java class (the class that contains the main() . From here you can code the logic to launch your pdf's.

Answer 2

This may be because the pdf file is inside the jar and returned URL from method getResource can not be recognized by external program.

You can do a print of " loc " to see what the URL looks like when it's in the jar file.