Java loading Jar Resources

When moving from running java programs from a directory to running from inside a jar file, I ran into trouble with loading images.

I use to do the following :

fileIconLocation   = "toolbarButtonGraphics/general/Edit16.gif";

//http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/components/icon.html
/** Returns an ImageIcon, or null if the path was invalid. */
protected ImageIcon createImageIcon(String path, String description) {
   java.net.URL imgURL = getClass().getResource(path);
   if (imgURL != null) {
      return new ImageIcon(imgURL, description);
   } else {
      System.err.println("Couldn't find file: " + imgURL.toString());
      return null;
   }
}

Once inside the Jar it can not find the file and always returns null.
Replacing getClass() with getClass().getClassLoader() seems to fix the problem.

protected ImageIcon createImageIcon(String path, String description) {
   java.net.URL imgURL = getClass().getClassLoader().getResource(path);
   if (imgURL != null) {
      return new ImageIcon(imgURL, description);
   } else {
      System.err.println("Couldn't find file: " + imgURL.toString());
      return null;
   }
}