Swing Hacks

Get Large File Icons #99

Chapter 12, Miscellany

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499

HACK

H A C K

#99

Get Large File Icons

Hack #99

Using an undocumented Windows-only class, you can retrieve large, full-

color file icons from the operating system.

The

FileSystemView

provides access only to file icons of a default size, which

usually means 16 × 16 pixels. If you look at your desktop, however, you may

see icons that are much bigger and with more detail and color. There is no

standard way to get the larger icons, but on Windows you can use an

undocumented (and unsupported) class to get access to them. Sun’s JRE for

Windows includes a hidden class called

sun.awt.shell.ShellFolder that will

let you retrieve larger (32 × 32) desktop file icons.

This class is only available in Sun’s JRE for Windows, so it

won’t work with other vendors or on other platforms.

The class in Example 12-22 will take a filename and show its large icon in a

window.

Example 12-22. Grabbing a large icon

public class LargeIconTest {

public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

// Create a File instance of an existing file

File file = new File(args[0]);

// Get metadata and create an icon

sun.awt.shell.ShellFolder sf =

sun.awt.shell.ShellFolder.getShellFolder(file);

Icon icon = new ImageIcon(sf.getIcon(true));

System.out.println("type = " + sf.getFolderType( ));

// show the icon

JLabel label = new JLabel(icon);

JFrame frame = new JFrame( );

frame.getContentPane( ).add(label);

frame.pack( );

frame.show( );

}

}