How can I include external jar on my Netbeans project

Question

When I run "clean and build" the .jar file that is being created only runs if the lib folder is at the same folder of the .jar file.

So if I move the jar file to the desktop and leave the lib folder in the dist folder, the jar file will give me an exception.

How can I deal with this problem?

Answer 1

I solved this by creating just one jar file with all libraries inside, adding the following to my build.xml file in NetBeans:

<target name="-post-jar">   <jar jarfile="dist/Combined-dist.jar">     <zipfileset src="${dist.jar}" excludes="META-INF/*" />     <zipfileset src="lib/commons-io-1.4.jar" excludes="META-INF/*" />     <zipfileset src="lib/ninja-utils-3.2.jar" excludes="META-INF/*" />     <zipfileset src="lib/unicorn-1.0.jar" excludes="META-INF/*" />     <manifest>         <attribute name="Main-Class" value="com.example.mypackage.Main"/>     </manifest>   </jar> </target> 

This creates a jar file (Combined-dist.jar) which is the combination of the dist jar and the specified library jars (in this case, commons-io-1.4.jar,ninja-utils-3.2.jar and unicorn-1.0.jar). You have to be sure to specify your Main Class package for the new jar file or it won't run when you try to open it.