[Bluej-discuss] Creating extension GUI in netbeans.

[Ian Utting]

Andrew -

> Does BlueJ need the swing-layout-1.0.jar library in its library folder?  
> Or should it already be in the bluej extension .jar file created by eclipse?

Your extension's class path includes (by default) only its own jar file, 
the BlueJ extensions API and unavoidable stuff from the Java environment 
(bootclasspath and Java "optional packages" from jre/lib/ext), so your 
swing-layout jar file won't be visible by default, wherever you put it.

However, you can add a ClassPath entry to your extension's Manifest file 
to refer to the swing-layout jar file externally.

There's a brief thread on doing this here: 
http://lists.bluej.org/pipermail/bluej-discuss/2005-November/005105.html
and the ClassPath manifest entry is documented in the JAR Manifest/Main 
attributes section of the JDK JAR File specification documents.

Alternatively (for easier installation) you can bundle your swing-layout 
jar inside your extension's jar, but seeing as Java ClassLoaders don't 
handle nested jar files, you would need to unpack them both and re-pack 
them into a single jar, which may give you Manifest entry problems.

Ian.