file type association with my java program

[Aron Jhed Amiscosa]

hi there.
i've created my own notepad application using java.
now, i want all files with .txt extension use my program as default viewer/editor.

is there a way i can programmatically associate .txt extension with my app?

thanks in advance.

[Rob Spoor]

Only by modifying the registry (Windows) or the appropriate configuration files (Linux, Mac OS) from your program.

[Aron Jhed Amiscosa]

so this means that it cant be done programatically?

thanks for this info mr. rob.

[Jesper de Jong]

Jhedzkie Skies wrote:so this means that it cant be done programatically?

That's not what Rob wrote...

[Rob Spoor]

It can be done, but it's going to require a bit of extra work. First of all, you need to know where and how the file association is stored. Then you need to know how to create / modify associations. And you may also want to have an undo function that allows you to restore the previous file association, in case someone wants to uninstall your application.

[Aron Jhed Amiscosa]

i see. i think i'll try to learn about associations first. thanks for the tip.

[Tushar Kapila]

if its windows - this is how i would do this

Have a customized installer.

when installing ask user if you want to associate .txt with your program. to start with you can make a new extn like .t1 and use that

most installers have the API to call to associate an extension with a program - some of the freeware ones too.

Your program will have to a .bat to start with
which will call java command line and pass the text file name to it

java.exe com.your_package.your_main_class %*

for this to work java should be installed and be in windows PATH var

else need to add the java home path ...
c:\java_home_path\bin\java.exe com.your_package.your_main_class %*

one level deeper would be to make a custom java launcher exe but that will be in c++ - check where java is installed and then launch it with correct params