I want to load fxml files from an absolute path or a path outside of my jar system.
background: it will be a simple plugin-system that look's in the plugin folder for all fxml files (later jar files) and include it automatically in a TabPane.
String fxmlpath = "C:\\plugin\\pluginfxml.fxml"; try { Parent root = FXMLLoader.load(getClass().getResource(fxmlpath)); //Load root in Tabpane and so on ... } 
It should be simple:
Parent root = FXMLLoader.load(Paths.get(fxmlpath).toUri().toURL()); FXMLLoader takes in a URL as its argument, so we just use the NIO Paths class to get the Path, then convert it to a URL. The only problem occurs if the program does not have read access to the file's location.'
I've fleshed out the example with the example code from the JavaFX tutorial:
Test application:
package javafx; import java.net.URL; import java.nio.file.Paths; import javafx.application.Application; import javafx.fxml.FXMLLoader; import javafx.scene.Parent; import javafx.scene.Scene; import javafx.stage.Stage; public class FXMLTest extends Application { public static void main(String[] args) { Application.launch(FXMLTest.class, args); } @Override public void start(Stage stage) throws Exception { URL fxmlURL = Paths.get("C:\\test\\fxml_example.fxml").toUri().toURL(); Parent root = FXMLLoader.load(fxmlURL); stage.setTitle("FXML Welcome"); Scene myScene = new Scene(root, 300, 275); stage.setScene(myScene); stage.show(); } } Example Controller:
package javafx; import javafx.event.ActionEvent; import javafx.fxml.FXML; import javafx.scene.text.Text; public class FXMLExampleController { @FXML private Text actiontarget; @FXML protected void handleSubmitButtonAction(ActionEvent event) { actiontarget.setText("Sign in button pressed"); } } Example FXML:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <?import java.net.*?> <?import javafx.geometry.*?> <?import javafx.scene.control.*?> <?import javafx.scene.layout.*?> <?import javafx.scene.text.*?> <GridPane fx:controller="javafx.FXMLExampleController" xmlns:fx="http://javafx.com/fxml" alignment="center" hgap="10" vgap="10" styleClass="root"> <padding><Insets top="25" right="25" bottom="25" left="25"/></padding> <Text id="welcome-text" text="Welcome" GridPane.columnIndex="0" GridPane.rowIndex="0" GridPane.columnSpan="2"/> <Label text="User Name:" GridPane.columnIndex="0" GridPane.rowIndex="1"/> <TextField GridPane.columnIndex="1" GridPane.rowIndex="1"/> <Label text="Password:" GridPane.columnIndex="0" GridPane.rowIndex="2"/> <PasswordField fx:id="passwordField" GridPane.columnIndex="1" GridPane.rowIndex="2"/> <HBox spacing="10" alignment="bottom_right" GridPane.columnIndex="1" GridPane.rowIndex="4"> <Button text="Sign In" onAction="#handleSubmitButtonAction"/> </HBox> <Text fx:id="actiontarget" GridPane.columnIndex="1" GridPane.rowIndex="6"/> <stylesheets> <URL value="@Login.css" /> </stylesheets> </GridPane> 
The call you make to Class.getResource(String) looks on the classpath for the resource (unless you've done something funky with the class-loaders) and therefore will never find an absolute path.
If you want to load a file from an absolute path, just create an java.io.FileInputStream using that path like this:
String fxmlpath = "C:\\plugin\\pluginfxml.fxml"; Parent root = FXMLLoader.load(new FileInputStream(fxmlpath)); That said, I'd be careful with absolute paths, they're not very portable - it's more common to create a standard directory structure for your application and then add the necessary directories to the classpath.
For example your application might have a directory structure like this:
My Application + bin + conf + lib + plugins Then assuming you run your application from the bin directory, you'd use a classpath like this:
../conf;../plugins;../lib/* Which would allow you to do the following in your application:
String fxmlpath = "pluginfxml.fxml"; Parent root = FXMLLoader.load(Class.getResourceAsStream(fxmlpath)); 
InputStream from a resource on the classpath (providing that resource exists)