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JFrame opens blank, runs a loop, and then displays components

Okay, so this problem has been plaguing me for the past few days. And before anyone comments about it, yes I have made the jframe visible and I have added all the components that I need to it. Also, all components are added well before the GUI is set to visible and activate() is called.
So I am trying to run a couple simeple lines of code.:
g.setVisible(true);
g.activate();
Simple enough. g is an object made from a class I made GUI which extends JFrame. and activate() is a method that runs an infinite loop that just does a bunch of things until the user tells it to exit. However, when the program gets to the g.setVisible() line it opens a JFrame that is the size I specified however is completely devoid of anything. Then it moves onto the g.activate(); which at the moment runs for a specific amount of iterations and stops. At which point it finally decides that it can go back and display my GUI. The issue with that is that the GUI is meant to be updated by the loop from active() and keep the user in the know of what is going on.
Any help is appreciated let me know if you need more detials and thank you in advance.

In many different UI frameworks, it's common for the methods you call to queue some work rather than perform it immediately. From your description, it seems like setVisible() may be creating a native window but then queuing the rendering of the components. Since this code is (presumably) running in the UI thread, it won't perform the work it queued until after running activate().
Long-running tasks should never be run on the UI thread. In Swing, you can use SwingWorker or explicitly create a background thread.

Using SwingWorker to show a loading animation

My Problem:
I have a long executing task in my application (Needs to fetch data from the web), and I'm trying to display a loading screen with an animation (Just a rotating circle, no progress bar needed) while the task is being executed
What I have done so far:
I created the design for the loading screen in a panel and added it to a JFrame and tried to call instantiate the JFrame before the the code for the long process, and then dispose it after the process is done, like this:
LoadingFrame frame = new LoadingFrame();
//Long Process
Wiring wiring = new Wiring(node.source);
wiring.generateScopeForTargetNode();
// close() calls setVisible(false) and then dispose()
frame.close();
However, the frame did not get repainted until the task was done and all I received was a blank box, and in the end it didn't get disposed.
I searched SO for the problem, and found that it has to do with Threads and concurrency (Which I am unfamiliar with) and found suggestions to use JDialog instead of JFrame, so I followed the suggestion. What I ended up with is this:
The JDialog loads and gets painted but the animation does not play
The JDialog does not get disposed at the end
What I need Help with:
I have tried to search more for the problem and found suggestions that I should use SwingWorker to run one task in a thread and the animation in another if I have understood correctly. However I am unfamiliar with threads and with SwingWorker and need help in creating a simple SwingWorker instance that achieves what I'm trying to do

Use a SwingWorker "to fetch data from the web" in the background. publish() interim results as they arrive. Your implementation of process() can then safely update a view component's model on the event dispatch thread. With even modest granularity, the user will start seeing data instead of an uninformative animation. This complete example updates the TableModel of a listening JTable, but the Document of a listening JTextComponent would work as well.

Why doesn't setText work for JLabel component?

I have a JLabel which I want to change momentarily, here is the code I have written to do so:
infoLabel.setText("Added");
try {
TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS.sleep(300);
}
catch(InterruptedException ex)
{
}
infoLabel.setText("Action"); //funny part is when I comment this line it works
My default text for the label is 'Action'

Swing is a single threaded frame work, that means, if you do anything that stops this thread, then it can't respond to any new events, including paint requests.
Basically, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS.sleep(300) is causing the Event Dispatching Thread to be put to sleep, preventing it from processing any new paint requests (amongst other things).
Instead, you should use a javax.swing.Timer
Take a look at
Concurrency in Swing
How to use Swing Timers
For more details
For example...
infoLabel.setText("Added");
Timer timer = new Timer(300, new ActionListener() {
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent evt) {
infoLabel.setText("Action");
}
});
timer.setRepeats(false);
timer.start();
Note, 300 milliseconds is a really short time, you might like to start with a value a little larger like 2000, which is 2 seconds ;)

You're sleeping the Swing event thread putting the entire GUI to sleep. Don't do that. Use a Swing Timer instead.

Your application is run on a single thread, so when you sleep the thread, you prevent it from making any GUI updates.

Are you sure you are doing things properly? By doing everything (including sleep) in the GUI thread, it will always be busy and never get back to Java in order to let the GUI be redrawn.
Search for EDT (Event dispatch thread) for more info. Here is one question on the subject: Processing code doesn't work (Threads, draw(), noLoop(), and loop())

Java graphics events not occurring in the order I expect them to

So I'm making a graphical card game. Each card is a JPanel with a button and two images associated with it. I have a flip method, which is the first thing I call in my action listener when a card is clicked on.
public void flip()
{
if(b1.getIcon() == card2) b1.setIcon(card1);
else b1.setIcon(card2);
revalidate();
repaint();
}
However, for some reason the card doesnt flip (meaning the icons don't change) until some point after I call this method. For example, when I put a Thread.sleep after I call flip, I would assume that my program would pause after flip is completed, but it doesnt! It sleeps with the images not yet switched, and only switches them some at point after the sleep time has ended.
This is causing some major problems when I have a human play an AI in this card game, because AI events are happening before cards flip on the screen, even though I am calling flip() before I do any AI code. Can anyone clue me in as to what is going on here?

Repaint is a request to Swing to redraw not a call to redraw. Under the covers repaint() is posting a repaint job onto a queue of events. Along with that repaint job things like mouse moves, mouse clicks, keyboard activites, etc are posted there too. The Swing thread comes by and periodically executes jobs from that queue to redraw the UI, deliver mouse and keyboard events to components, etc. In fact the swing thread delivers these events quite frequently, but it just depends on how much work your UI is doing on that Swing thread. When it's out delivering mouse clicks, keyboard events, and redraws it can't read from that queue. So if your code takes a long time to repsond to any event the ability for swing to respond timely to new events is reduced or all together blocked.
That's why if you execute a blocking service call over the network with the Swing event dispatch thread your UI stops drawing until that call returns. This is why its important to move long running jobs like network calls off the Swing Thread, and use SwingUtilities.invokeLater() when the call comes back so you can update the UI on the Event thread. (invokeLater() does this by posting a job onto the Swing event queue we talked about above).
This is also why it's a terrible idea to call sleep on the Swing event thread. If you put that thread to sleep it can't service events from the queue. And the repaint() you requested isn't going to be done while the Swing thread is sleeping.
First remove your sleep call. Second. Don't write code that depends on painting to finish before executing more logic. Repaint and revalidate are special calls, and Swing will combine requests to repaint/revalidate so it doesn't redraw 10 times in a row (wasting vital cpu time).
Swing can't redraw your panel until you let the thread that called you leave the method it first called you back on. The sooner the thread leaves that method the sooner your repaint() will happen.
You haven't explained why you want the repaint to happen immediately so I can't give you any advice on how to structure your code so you don't care about it. But I'm telling you, you shouldn't care that the repaint hasn't happened yet.

Totally agree with #chubbsondubs. I just wanted to add that if your goal is to have some event happen some time after flip is called, consider using a swing timers. As you are painfully aware, calling Sleep does not have the desired effect. But if instead, you
create a timer for say 1 second
create an action to be performed when the timer fires
start the timer
then you can create the delay that you want without blocking the event dispatch thread.
public void flip()
{
if(b1.getIcon() == card2) b1.setIcon(card1);
else b1.setIcon(card2);
revalidate();
repaint();
javax.swing.Timer t = new javax.swing.Timer(1000, new ActionListener() {
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
// do something interesting
}
});
t.repeats(false);
t.start();
}

Forcing Java to refresh the Java Swing GUI

Ive coded two Computers to play each other in Reversi, however when they play each other. The board only updates after the game has finished.
From some googling around I know its has something to do the AWT Event Thread, but I still have no idea how to force the JFrame to refresh.
My function works by changing the icons and then calling revalidate and repaint.
Any pointers would be wonderful.

If you start your AI game from an actionPerformed(), it is executed in EDT thread. You should move your logic (and your sleep()'s outside of EDT thread by starting a new Thread to allow Swing to repaint UI properly and post updates to UI as following:
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
myUI.update(); // repaint(), etc. according to changed states
}
});
Also consider use of javax.swing.SwingWorker, javax.swing.Timer and take a look at Concurrency in Swing.

Sounds like a threading issue - Event Thread is not being given a chance to execute. I would start with some sleep commands in the logic / action threads to give time for the UI to update.
Also, you could have an "updateUI" thread and run that on an invokeAndWait to force it to update the display. Call that after each move has been completed.

If you need to force the application to redraw, you should invoke the repaint() method on the component containing the game board. This should cause Swing to repaint the board.