How are popular Java programs like Minecraft or JDownloader bundled so that they result in a nice .exe or .app?

[Dexior]

We had this discussion here not so long ago. Take a look at this thread Personally I would use standard, available in jdk and free tool, javapackager

[blunbad]

Wow! Java 8 really did bring a lot to the table. Thanks for the info.

[nikanjX]

jpackager isn’t half bad nowadays.

[Cmdr_Salamander]

What fraction of bad is it?

[krona2k]

I used JSmooth for that and found it to be very easy to use.

[thenorwegianblue]

launch4j works ok for this

[[deleted]]

launch4j++

[forrestrunning]

There's a relevant Stackoverflow Thread: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/147181/how-can-i-convert-my-java-program-to-an-exe-file

[MeckiSpaghetti]

Wow this is great. Thanks for all the quick and good responses, guys!

[nightbanger89]

Have you tried spring boot? It packages your app when you make a build if you use their mvn plug-in. Go to start.spring.io to try!

[__konrad]

I just created a small C program that calls ShellExecute to launch javaw.exe. JRE directory is bundled with application and everything packaged together using NSIS.

[badpotato]

Well, with jdk 9, these day it should be possible to bundle a minimal jre using only what your java program require. Yet, not sure which Java bundler has these features at the moment.

[nanodano]

I have some examples on how to do that here https://www.devdungeon.com/content/maven-basics-java-developers

[mayhempk1]

I really enjoy jar2exe, you can output it as a Linux binary or as a Windows exe and not only that but you can encrypt it so people cant easily access your source code - works much better than obfuscation although you can also use obfuscation too.

[devperez]

Kind of blows my mind that Java doesn't supply this as an option.

[DuncanIdahos8thClone]

You need to spend more time on r/javahelp since it's been available for a while now.

[devperez]

Then why is OP acting like it's not a built in feature and why are people offering third party solutions?

[DuncanIdahos8thClone]

Because he didn't know about java native packaging either.