Question:
How do I refer to/utilize the getImage(…) method whenusing it in an application, as I can only get it to work for an applet?

Answer:
To display images in a stand-alone Java application, you need to usethe Toolkit class in the AWT package. Among the methods of theToolkit class you’ll find a couple of different flavors ofgetImage() that provide the same functionality as the getImage()method in the Applet class:

       public abstract Image getImage(String  filename);       public abstract Image getImage(URL  url);

They take a string or a URL and return an Image object which canthen be drawn using drawImage.

You can’t instantiate a Toolkit object directly, however, becauseit is an abstract class and as such, its methods are implementedonly in its subclasses (the AWT implementation underneath your GUI).To get hold of a Toolkit object, you use the getToolkit() methodof class Component.

This is best described with the help of an example.The following Java application is a very primitive image viewer.It takes a single command-line argument which is the name of animage file or URL to display and it will image it on the screen.The program is invoked as follows:

               java ImageViewer                or               java ImageViewer import java.awt.*;import java.net.*;public class ImageViewer extends Canvas {       Image image;       int width, height;       public ImageViewer(String urlname) {               //               // Canvas is a subclass of Component, so you can               // use the getToolkit() method in class Component to               // get a Toolkit object.  You then use the Toolkit to               // create an Image from the URL name               //               Toolkit tk = getToolkit();               try {                       //                       // If the urlname is a valid URL, call the                       // URL version of getImage()                       //                       URL url = new URL(urlname);                       image = tk.getImage(url);               } catch (MalformedURLException e) {                       //                       // Otherwise use the filename version of getImage()                       //                       image = tk.getImage(urlname);               }               //               // Force the image to be loaded, don’t proceed until               // the picture is all loaded and the size is known               // prepareImage() returns true when the image has been               // loaded.               //               while (!tk.prepareImage(image, -1, -1, this)) {                       try {                               Thread.sleep(500);                               System.out.println(“Loading…”);                       } catch (Exception e) {}               }               width = image.getWidth(this);               height = image.getHeight(this);       }       public void paint(Graphics g) {               g.drawImage(image, 0, 0, this);       }       //       // The following two methods are needed so Java knows how       // big the canvas ought to be.  Without them, the window       // occupies the entire screen.       //       public Dimension minimumSize() {               return new Dimension(width, height);       }       public Dimension preferredSize() {               return minimumSize();       }       public static void main(String argv[]) {               Frame f = new Frame();               ImageViewer iv = new ImageViewer(argv[0]);               f.setLayout(new BorderLayout());               f.add(“Center”, iv);               f.pack();               f.show();       }}