The splash screen can be displayed at application startup, before the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) starts. The splash screen is displayed as an undecorated window containing an image. You can use GIF, JPEG, or PNG files for the image. Animation is supported for the GIF format, while transparency is supported both for GIF and PNG. The window is positioned at the center of the screen. The position on multi-monitor systems is not specified. It is platform and implementation dependent. The splash screen window is closed automatically as soon as the first window is displayed by Swing/AWT (may be also closed manually using the Java API, see below).

If your application is packaged in a jar file, you can use the "SplashScreen-Image" option in a manifest file to show a splash screen. Place the image in the jar archive and specify the path in the option. The path should not have a leading slash.
For example, in the manifest.mf file:

Manifest-Version: 1.0
 Main-Class: Test
 SplashScreen-Image: filename.gif

If the Java implementation provides the command-line interface and you run your application by using the command line or a shortcut, use the Java application launcher option to show a splash screen. The Oracle reference implementation allows you to specify the splash screen image location with the -splash: option.
For example:

java -splash:filename.gif Test

The splash screen will be displayed as faithfully as possible to present the whole splash screen image given the limitations of the target platform and display.

It is implied that the specified image is presented on the screen "as is", i.e. preserving the exact color values as specified in the image file. Under certain circumstances, though, the presented image may differ, e.g. when applying color dithering to present a 32 bits per pixel (bpp) image on a 16 or 8 bpp screen. The native platform display configuration may also affect the colors of the displayed image (e.g. color profiles, etc.)

The SplashScreen class provides the API for controlling the splash screen. This class may be used to close the splash screen, change the splash screen image, get the splash screen native window position/size, and paint in the splash screen. It cannot be used to create the splash screen. You should use the options provided by the Java implementation for that.

This class cannot be instantiated. Only a single instance of this class can exist, and it may be obtained by using the getSplashScreen() static method. In case the splash screen has not been created at application startup via the command line or manifest file option, the getSplashScreen method returns null.

Returns the bounds of the splash screen window as a Rectangle. This may be useful if, for example, you want to replace the splash screen with your window at the same location.

You cannot control the size or position of the splash screen. The splash screen size is adjusted automatically when the image changes.

The image may contain transparent areas, and thus the reported bounds may be larger than the visible splash screen image on the screen.

Returns the size of the splash screen window as a Dimension. This may be useful if, for example, you want to draw on the splash screen overlay surface.

You cannot control the size or position of the splash screen. The splash screen size is adjusted automatically when the image changes.

The image may contain transparent areas, and thus the reported size may be larger than the visible splash screen image on the screen.

Creates a graphics context (as a Graphics2D object) for the splash screen overlay image, which allows you to draw over the splash screen. Note that you do not draw on the main image but on the image that is displayed over the main image using alpha blending. Also note that drawing on the overlay image does not necessarily update the contents of splash screen window. You should call update() on the SplashScreen when you want the splash screen to be updated immediately.

The pixel (0, 0) in the coordinate space of the graphics context corresponds to the origin of the splash screen native window bounds (see getBounds()).

Determines whether the splash screen is visible. The splash screen may be hidden using close(), it is also hidden automatically when the first AWT/Swing window is made visible.

Note that the native platform may delay presenting the splash screen native window on the screen. The return value of true for this method only guarantees that the conditions to hide the splash screen window have not occurred yet.