Ever wondered what information you could possibly get from a drop in a Drag&Drop operation? Wonder no more. Use the following small helper class and drag something over it. It will show you the available DataFlavors.

Use it with draggables from native applications (browser URL, files, text snippets etc.) and you might be surprised about the different DataFlavors available!

import java.awt.*; // imports not expanded to safe space
import java.awt.dnd.*;
import java.awt.datatransfer.*;
import javax.swing.*;
/** @author beders (Jochen Bedersdorfer) */
public class UniversalDropViewer extends JTextArea implements DropTargetListener{
  public UniversalDropViewer() {
    new DropTarget(this, this);   
    setText("Drag something over me!");
  }  
  public void dragEnter(DropTargetDragEvent aDtde) {
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(300);
    for (DataFlavor d : aDtde.getCurrentDataFlavorsAsList()) {
      sb.append(d.getHumanPresentableName()).append(":  ").append(d.getMimeType()).append(" (").
      append(d.getDefaultRepresentationClassAsString()).append(")\n");      
    }
    setText(sb.toString());    
  }
  public void dragOver(DropTargetDragEvent aDtde) {}
  public void dropActionChanged(DropTargetDragEvent aDtde) {}
  public void dragExit(DropTargetEvent aDte) {}
  public void drop(DropTargetDropEvent aDtde) {}
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    JFrame fr = new JFrame("UDV");
    fr.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
    fr.add(new JScrollPane(new UniversalDropViewer()));    
    fr.setSize(600,700);
    fr.setVisible(true);
  }
}