edit() - Launch Default Editor for Given File

Java Swing Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟edit() - Launch Default Editor for Given File

This section provides a tutorial example on how to use Desktop.edit() method to launch the default editor for the given file based on the file type.

If you have a file and want to launch its associated default editor on the current desktop of the operating system, you can get the default Desktop object and call its edit() method. Here is a sample program:

/* DesktopEditFile.java
 * Copyright (c) 1997-2024 HerongYang.com. All Rights Reserved.
 */
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.event.*;
import java.io.File;
public class DesktopEditFile {
   public static void main(String[] a) {
      try {
     File file = new File("Swing.jpg");
         Desktop desktop = Desktop.getDesktop();
         if (desktop != null) desktop.edit(file);
      } catch (Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
      }
   }
}

Make sure you have image file called Swing.jpg in the working directory. Then run this program, you will see the default image editor program is started with the given image file. On my Windows 10 computer, I am getting the "Paint" app launched.