I can't get my icon to show up in my JLabel swing component.

Question

I am a first time user of Stackoverflow, so please bare with me. Below is the java Swing code to place a icon in a JLabel Swing component.

package com.TheMcLeodgrp;

import java.awt.FlowLayout;
import java.awt.HeadlessException;

import javax.swing.Icon;
import javax.swing.ImageIcon;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;

public class Main extends JFrame {
  public Main() throws HeadlessException {
    setSize(300, 300);
    setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
    setLayout(new FlowLayout(FlowLayout.LEFT));

    Icon icon = new ImageIcon("myIcon.gif");
    JLabel label1 = new JLabel("Full Name :", icon, JLabel.LEFT);

    JLabel label2 = new JLabel("Address :", JLabel.LEFT);
    label2.setIcon(new ImageIcon("myIcon.gif"));

    getContentPane().add(label1);
    getContentPane().add(label2);
  }

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    new Main().setVisible(true);
  }
}

It is a simple label program where everything else works fine. The icon (myIcon.gif) just wont show up in the label when I run the program. I am running it from a standard Eclipse IDE, and myIcon.gif resides in a folder - ie; images/myIcon.gif. It seems like I missing something simple here, but I don't know. Do I need to place the icon somewhere else in the application. Any help will be very much appreciated.

Jerry McLeod

Answer 1

I think the following article will do much better job of explaining how to load image resources then I will :)

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E17409_01/javase/tutorial/uiswing/components/icon.html

Answer 2

I'll second @eugener's recommendation on the tutorial. Also, try using the relative path, and check the result of constructing the ImageIcon:

JLabel label2 = new JLabel("Address :", JLabel.LEFT);
ImageIcon icon = new ImageIcon("images/myIcon.gif");
if (icon.getIconWidth() == -1) {
    JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null,
        "No image!", "Gahh!", JOptionPane.ERROR_MESSAGE);
} else {
    label2.setIcon(icon);
}