Question

Launch a file = launch program associated with given file and automatically open that file on start of the program.

Let’s say I run IntelliJ IDEA, I run my code and main window (modal) of my program shows up. My program is in the foreground.

Then I launch a .pdf file (for now it means AcroReader will be executed) from my program. AA will show up in front of IntelliJ but behind my program.

Question

I would like AA (it is just an example here of course) to be shown in front of my program, not behind. How to do it?

Please note, this does not mean I would like to move my program to the background!

For launching files I use

java.awt.Desktop.getDesktop().open(new java.io.File(filepath));

My GUI is done in Swing.

Update 1

To rule out, any influence of custom widgets, events, and so on, I put simply JButton at the bottom of my window (JDialog) — it is in Scala, but this piece is similar to Java syntax:

var dlg = new javax.swing.JDialog(null,"test",Dialog.ModalityType.DOCUMENT_MODAL);
dlg.setDefaultCloseOperation(WindowConstants.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE);

var button = new JButton("Select Me");
var actionListener = new ActionListener() {
      def actionPerformed( actionEvent : ActionEvent) = {
        java.awt.Desktop.getDesktop().open(new java.io.File("test.pdf"))
      }
    };

button.addActionListener(actionListener);
dlg.add(button, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
dlg.setSize(300, 100);
dlg.setVisible(true);

Once clicked, AA is shown behind my app. Since it takes several seconds to run AA I also tried to click the button, and move the mouse away from my window. Exactly the same behaviour.

I also noted that AA is shown at the same relative position to my window, top left corner of AA is near bottom right corner of my app.

Answer 1

You may try something like this. On my machine (Ubuntu 10.4 LTS with Gnome2) it gives the evince (pdf-viewer) in the front, and if I close/hide evince – JDialog is placed back to the front.

On windows it may be very different, since actually without “dlg.toBack();” invocation behavior is the same.

import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.io.IOException;

import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JDialog;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;
import javax.swing.WindowConstants;

public class OpenFileTest {

public static void main(String[] args) {
    SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
        @Override
        public void run() {
            final JDialog dlg = new javax.swing.JDialog(null, "test", JDialog.ModalityType.DOCUMENT_MODAL);
            dlg.setDefaultCloseOperation(WindowConstants.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE);
            JButton button = new JButton("Select Me");
            button.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
                @Override
                public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
                    try {
                        java.awt.Desktop.getDesktop().open(
                                new java.io.File("/home/user/Downloads/jfreechart-1.0.13-US.pdf"));
                        dlg.toBack();
                    } catch (IOException e1) {
                        throw new RuntimeException(e1);
                    }
                }
            });
            dlg.add(button);
            dlg.setVisible(true);
        }
    });
}
}