So I have been working on my game for a little over a month. Even with college, I spend as much time as I can on the game to be bug-free as possible and make sure it is important it has the right mechanics of that particular genre.

Now I want to share it with people and make sure they can play it by clicking the jar file instead of the MS DOS batch file I created. This would mean the src folder will not be given along side with the Java jar file.

I know for certain it is possible seeing as I have downloaded and use other people jar files and their jar files do not come out a src folder or a batch file. How did they do it?

You could add/edit the jar manifest to include/specify which class is the startign point.

See http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/deployment/jar/appman.html for more details.

If file associations are correctly set up I would recommend using OneJar (http://one-jar.sourceforge.net/). I've used this for prototypes. It can even load native libraries such as LWJGL.

Other solutions you could use are:

• Native code compiler to create an executable, such as Excelsior JET (http://www.excelsior-usa.com/) or GCJ (http://gcc.gnu.org/java/)
• I think there are tools to wrap a JAR in a Windows PE (EXE) file too. (http://jsmooth.sourceforge.net/index.php)
• Create a executable that shells out to Java rather than using a batch file.

• I think there are tools to wrap a JAR in a Windows PE (EXE) file too. (http://jsmooth.sourceforge.net/index.php)

One tool I would recommend for this purpose is Launch4j.

@warnexus It looks like you're targeting Windows, but if you target other platforms you could build one executabe wrapper for each platform.

I once had a problem where I created an executable JAR file that worked by double-clicking on my computer but it didn't work on another computer. It could have been an issue involving a JRE difference. The other advantages of using a tool such as Launch4j is that JRE differences are handled automatically (you either bundle your JRE version or you set a min and max version) and you don't have to worry about the user having to set the Java path.

What does your batch file contain? Did you try reading this?

I actually did come across the same link but my jar cannot execute unless it has the src folder that has the .class files. when I use other people's jar file. I do not even see the .class files only just one .jar file to execute the program.

My batch file is basically a .txt file with these commands: Here's a picture of what is inside the .txt

On a side note I do not understand what "-cp" means.

I already written the manifest. then I tried this command java -jar NicholasGame.jar in the command prompt and it worked but for the average user this would be weird to do. If I execute my jar file without the src folder my application becomes like this.

You could add/edit the jar manifest to include/specify which class is the startign point.

See http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/deployment/jar/appman.html for more details.

I did add the Manifest. Here is what the Manifest looked like. Should it be in the src folder or outside of the src folder? But the manifest did not help me access the jar file. I even tried to java -jar JAR-name (ie java -jar NicholasGame.jar )on the command prompt and it worked but for the average user this is weird to perform just to open a game.