Image won't appear on JLabel. Tried multiple solutions

Question

I'm trying to add an image to a JLabel to put on JFrame and after hours of researching it still only loads the JFrame with 2 buttons on the bottom. The Image in question is in the same directory as the class except a folder down (I've tried in the same folder to no avail). I'm quite new to coding so please bear with me.

This is most of the code except the button's action listeners (the class extends JFrame as well)

JPanel jp = new JPanel();
JPanel jb = new JPanel(new GridLayout(1, 2, 20, 20));
JLabel jl = new JLabel();
JButton end = new JButton("End");
JButton next = new JButton("Next");

jl.setIcon(new ImageIcon("notes/daWay.jpg"));

setSize(900, 700);
jp.add(jl, new FlowLayout());
add(jp);
jb.add(end);
jb.add(next);
add(jb, BorderLayout.PAGE_END);

setVisible(true);

I've tried: setting label bounds, checked if ImageIcon was null (it wasn't), making ImageIcon its own variable then adding the variable to the Jlabel, getContentPane for JFrame, using a BufferedImage and ImageIO with try and catch (with url and without), getClass, getClassLoader, getResource, imageUpdate on the label, with FlowLayout and without, jpegs and pngs, clearing the frame except for the one label, and many other things. Even extending the window while running the image doesn't appear, Please Help!

(also in the future I'd like to clear the label and add a new image, I'm not at that point yet cause I can't get past this error but if context helps with the solution then context)

ImageIcon is probably a bad place to start, as it won't tell you when something goes wrong. A better place (to hep you diagnose the issue) would be to use ImageIO.load - see Reading/Loading an Image for more details — MadProgrammer
Also, set the text of the label to make sure it's actually been added to your frame — MadProgrammer
jp.add(jl, new FlowLayout()); doesn't make sense. In this case, just use jp.add(jl); — MadProgrammer
I added the FlowLayout cause I knew it wouldn't hurt and Eclipse gets weird sometimes so it was just to make sure that wasn't the problem. I'll try ImageIO when I get home and let you know, Thank You! — GingerBrass
@MadProgrammer I added text to the JLabel and it just displays the text at the top of the JFrame, I tried ImageIO like you suggested and got a NullPointerException — GingerBrass

JB Nizet JB Nizet · Accepted Answer · 2020-01-18T09:40:00

The ImageIcon constructor you're using takes a file path as an argument.

For your code to work, you would thus have to pass an absolute file path, because relative ones are resolved based on the current directory, not based on the class containing the file path.

The current directory is the directory from which the java command is executed.

What you want to do is use the class loader to load the image. So that you can embed the image into the jar file you will create when building your application.

So you should instead use

new ImageIcon(YourClass.class.getResource("notes/daWay.jpg"))

This will load the image from the daWay.jpg resource located in the subpackage notes of the package of YourClass.

Image won't appear on JLabel. Tried multiple solutions

1 Answers