Bellow is the code for the simplest GUI countdown. Can the same be done in a shorter and more elegant way with the usage of the Swing timer?
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;
public class CountdownNew {
static JLabel label;
// Method which defines the appearance of the window.
public static void showGUI() {
JFrame frame = new JFrame("Simple Countdown");
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
label = new JLabel("Some Text");
frame.add(label);
frame.pack();
frame.setVisible(true);
}
// Define a new thread in which the countdown is counting down.
public static Thread counter = new Thread() {
public void run() {
for (int i=10; i>0; i=i-1) {
updateGUI(i,label);
try {Thread.sleep(1000);} catch(InterruptedException e) {};
}
}
};
// A method which updates GUI (sets a new value of JLabel).
private static void updateGUI(final int i, final JLabel label) {
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(
new Runnable() {
public void run() {
label.setText("You have " + i + " seconds.");
}
}
);
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
showGUI();
counter.start();
}
});
}
}
Yes you SHOULD use a Swing Timer. You SHOULD NOT, use a util Timer and TimerTask.
When a Swing Timer fires the code is executed on the EDT which means you just need to invoke the label.setText() method.
When using the uitl Timer and TimerTask, the code DOES NOT execute on the EDT, which means you need to wrap your code in a SwingUtilities.invokeLater to make sure the code executes on the EDT.
And that is way using a Swing Timer is shorter and more elegant than your current approach, it simplifies the coding because to code is executed on the EDT.
You could make it a little more elegant by using Timer with an appropriate TimerTask.
Yes, use a timer. updateGUI would be the code for the timer task, but it will need some changes as you won't be able to pass in i for each call since you just get a run() method.
Related
I am working on this application in swing .It is actually a voice controlled thingy...I give voice commands and some action is performed.But the thing is that once it is deployed, it is on an infinite while loop, it continuously searches for voice( which it should..imagine the jarvis of iron man movie) .. but this while loop freezes up my gui.I can not update it.can not hide panels , can not play sound.
swing worker and swing utilities shouldn;t help me because they check for the code after certain period of time while i need real time voice recognition..
So what can be done ? Can i make my gui interact with another java program? Like the java prog will do the voice recognition and pass on the reply to the gui?
Here is the code sketch
class{
main(){
new class()
}
class(){
frames + content pane initialized
mousePresssed()
{
///the while loop starts here and looks for voice commands..any gui update code doesnt work here..while it detects the voice fine..continuously.
}
}
Basically, you need to have your infinite loop run in another Thread than the EDT. And whenever you want to update your GUI, do it on the EDT, using a SwingUtilities.invokeLater call. The delay for calling the update of the GUI in invokeLater will be barely noticeable. SwingUtilities.invokeLater is not based on a polling mechanism. The only thing it does is transform a Runnable into an event which is then posted on the EDT. The EDT will then execute your Runnable as soon as possible, so most of the time, instantly.
Now for the pattern on how to communicate between your Thread and your GUI, you can simply use the "Observer" pattern. Your voice recognition thread is somehow a model and your UI simply listens for changes on that model. Whenever the model changes, the UI updates itself.
I made a dummy example of such thing. For the "Observer" pattern, I used the PropertyChangeSupport for it.
For the model, I created a dummy thread which generates random "command" every once in a while and the UI updates itself accordingly:
import java.beans.PropertyChangeEvent;
import java.beans.PropertyChangeListener;
import java.beans.PropertyChangeSupport;
import java.util.Random;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;
public class TestThreadingAndGUI implements PropertyChangeListener {
private JFrame frame;
private JLabel label;
private DummyRunnable runnable;
public static class DummyRunnable implements Runnable {
private PropertyChangeSupport pcs = new PropertyChangeSupport(this);
private String command;
public void addPropertyChangeListener(PropertyChangeListener listener) {
pcs.addPropertyChangeListener(listener);
}
#Override
public void run() {
Random random = new Random();
while (true) {
try {
Thread.sleep(((random.nextInt(3)) + 1) * 1000);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
for (int i = 0; i < 15; i++) {
sb.append((char) ('a' + random.nextInt(26)));
}
setCommand(sb.toString());
}
}
public String getCommand() {
return command;
}
private void setCommand(String command) {
String old = this.command;
this.command = command;
pcs.firePropertyChange("command", old, command);
}
}
protected void initUI(DummyRunnable runnable) {
frame = new JFrame();
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
label = new JLabel();
label.setHorizontalAlignment(JLabel.CENTER);
frame.add(label);
frame.setSize(600, 600);
frame.setVisible(true);
this.runnable = runnable;
runnable.addPropertyChangeListener(this);
}
private void executeCommand() {
label.setText(runnable.getCommand());
}
#Override
public void propertyChange(PropertyChangeEvent evt) {
if (evt.getPropertyName().equals("command")) {
// Received new command (outside EDT)
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
// Updating GUI inside EDT
executeCommand();
}
});
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
final DummyRunnable runnable = new DummyRunnable();
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
TestThreadingAndGUI testThreadingAndGUI = new TestThreadingAndGUI();
testThreadingAndGUI.initUI(runnable);
}
});
new Thread(runnable).start();
}
}
i know multithreading a bit but not in vast and i think the problem is of multithreading. I am calling a method to set label's text by invoking a new thread and leaving it blank after a specified time. I am getting the desired output every time but not only the place which i am going to show you by my piece of code. I am expecting that message should be set and disappeared after the specified time and the window should be minimized after that time. But what actually happening is when it is going to the other thread main thread execution starts and goes for sleep for 5 sec and the message is not appearing and after 5 sec window is getting minimized without showing the message which i am setting on the label.
(Main thread)
Validation.setMessageOnLabel("Username and password has been copied", jLabel15,1.5F);
try {
Thread.sleep(5000);
} catch (InterruptedException ex) {
Logger.getLogger(PasswordManager.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
}
setState(ICONIFIED);
validation.java (setMessageOnLabel())
static public void setMessageOnLabel(final String msg, final JLabel label, final float time)
{
new Thread(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
label.setText(msg);
try {
Thread.sleep((long) (time*1000));
} catch (InterruptedException ex) {
Logger.getLogger(PasswordManager.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
}
label.setText("");
}
}).start();
}
Since you're calling setState() directly, I assume the first code snippet is part of a JFrame. In that case you're most probably sending the event dispatch thread to sleep for 5 seconds and thus prevent screen updates during that time.
Put the sleep into another thread or use a swing worker instead and call setState() on the EDT in the worker's callback method, since setState() is not labelled as thread-safe and calling it on a thread other than the EDT might result in unexpected behavior.
From the linked tutorial:
Some Swing component methods are labelled "thread safe" in the API specification; these can be safely invoked from any thread. All other Swing component methods must be invoked from the event dispatch thread. Programs that ignore this rule may function correctly most of the time, but are subject to unpredictable errors that are difficult to reproduce.
Don't use Thread.sleep(5000);, that block EDT.
For that purposes you can use swing Timer, examine next example:
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.Timer;
public class TestFrame extends JFrame {
private JLabel lbl;
public TestFrame() {
init();
setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
pack();
setLocationRelativeTo(null);
setVisible(true);
}
private void init() {
lbl = new JLabel(" ");
JButton setText = new JButton("setText");
setText.addActionListener(getActionListener());
add(lbl);
add(setText,BorderLayout.SOUTH);
}
private ActionListener getActionListener() {
return new ActionListener() {
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
lbl.setText("wait...");
Timer t = new Timer(5000, new ActionListener() {
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
lbl.setText("");
setState(JFrame.ICONIFIED);
}
});
t.setRepeats(false);
t.start();
}
};
}
public static void main(String args[]) {
new TestFrame();
}
}
When dealing with Swing components you shuld not use threads like that. Launch your own SwingWorker instead.
public class MySwingWorker extends SwingWorker<Object, Object> {
#Override
public Object doInBackground() {
//your code here
//dont forget to repaint changed component or validate parent of it,
//if your text dont shows up.
return null;
}
}
you can also execute your own runnable via SwingUtilites
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
//again your code here...
}
});
I currently have a java program with swing gui that lets the user choose various files (xsl-fo and xml) and generates PDFs using Render X. I have trying for a while to get a pop up JFrame to appear when a button is pressed, which would then show a progress bar, or label to keep the user informed of the progress. However when instantiating a new frame it will appear black, or without components, which then show after the processes have completed.
private void RunButtonActionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt) {
ExecutorService executor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(8);
//for reach file to process)
for (int i = 0; i < count; i++) {
Runnable worker = new ProcessThreader(conf, i);
executor.execute(worker);
}
executor.shutdown();
JFrame PercentageFrame = new JFrame();
PercentageFrame.setVisible(true);
PercentageFrame.setSize(200, 200);
PercentageFrame.repaint();
while (!executor.isTerminated()) {
try {
Thread.sleep(1000);
} catch (InterruptedException ex) {
NarrowOptionPane.errorMessage("Interrupted: ", ex.getMessage());
}
}
System.out.println("Complete");
}
The run button is located in a JPanel, which is located in a JFrame and the Main Frame is instantiated in the main method, and wrapped in the invoke later method
public static void main(String[] args) {
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
JFrame frame = new MainFrame("PDF Producer");
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
frame.setVisible(true);
frame.setSize(710, 530);
frame.setResizable(false);
frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
}
});
}
I'm fairly new to threading / executors and java swing, so go easy! Thanks
Code executed from within a listener is executed on the Event Dispatch Thread. So the Thread.sleep() is causing the EDT to sleep which means the GUI can't respond to events or repaint itself.
Read the section from the Swing tutorial on Concurrency In Swing for more information. One solution as described in the tutorial is to use a SwingWorker for the long running task and to publish results as they become available.
Your while loop block EDT, delete that and your code will be work.
See next example with ExecutorService and JProgressBar :
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.util.concurrent.ExecutorService;
import java.util.concurrent.Executors;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JProgressBar;
public class Example extends JFrame {
private static JProgressBar progress;
public static void main(String[] args) {
final JFrame f = new JFrame();
progress = new JProgressBar();
progress.setStringPainted(true);
progress.setIndeterminate(true);
ExecutorService newCachedThreadPool = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(1);
for( int i =0; i<10;i++){
final int j = i;
Runnable r = new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
progress.setString(j+"");
try {
Thread.sleep(1000);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
};
newCachedThreadPool.submit(r);
}
f.getContentPane().add(progress,BorderLayout.CENTER);
f.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
f.pack();
f.setVisible(true);
}
}
Here JFrame show number of Runnable which executed in ExecutorService. Also if you need to get result from your Runnables, try to use Callable instead of Runnable. With that when you submit Callable you get Future instance from which you can get result.
Read about Executors, Callable and Future.
I am a beginner in java and unfortunately I was stuck on this problem. In code:
NewJFrame.java :
public class NewJFrame extends JFrame {
public void showText() {
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
jLabel1.setText("in show()"); //it does not work
System.out.println("in show()"); //it works
}
});
}
public NewJFrame() {
initComponents();
jLabel1.setText("start"); //it works
}
public static void main(String args[]) {
Timer timer = new Timer();
timer.schedule(new NewClass(), 1000, 2000);
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
new NewJFrame().setVisible(true);
}
});
}
private javax.swing.JLabel jLabel1;
}
NewClass.java :
package newpackage;
import java.util.TimerTask;
class NewClass extends TimerTask {
public void run() {
System.out.println("in NewClass.run()"); //it works
new NewJFrame().showText();
}
}
I have a problem with the fact that the setText does not set jLabel1 when is called from timer thread. I tried to solve the problem using invokeLater(), but still does not work.
Thanks for your help.
The JLabel is never added to any container. Why would it appear?
As general advice, don't extend frame, simply keep a reference and as mentioned by #Reimeus, use a Swing Timer.
You are creating a new instance of NewJFrame in NewClass which never gets displayed:
new NewJFrame().showText();
You would need to pass the visible instance to NewClass for it to be updated.
However, better to use javax.swing.Timer rather than java.util.Timer to interact with Swing components. From How to Use Swing Timers:
In general, we recommend using Swing timers rather than general-purpose timers for GUI-related tasks because Swing timers all share the same, pre-existing timer thread and the GUI-related task automatically executes on the event-dispatch thread.
Also See: Concurrency in Swing
Try adding repaint() right after you set the text.
After changing the look of something on screen, you must always repaint the frame.
jLabel1.setText("in show()"); //it does not work
repaint(); //now it works
System.out.println("in show()"); //it works
I need to execute/display a series of events from a Arraylist to a JTextArea, however, each Event gets execute with different time. Following is a quick example of my goal:
public void start(ActionEvent e)
{
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable()
{
public void run()
{
jTextArea.append("Test" + "\n");
try
{
Thread.sleep(3000);
} catch (InterruptedException e1)
{
e1.printStackTrace();
}
jTextArea.append("Test1" + "\n");
}
});
}
So right now, "Test" and "Test1" display on JTextArea after whole execution is completed.
How do I make "Test" display first, then 3 secs later, display "Test1"
Thank u all in advance
invokeLater schedules the runnable to run on the Event Dispatch Thread. You shouldn't sleep within it or you will starve the dispatch thread. Try using a separate worker thread instead:
Thread worker = new Thread(new Runnable(){
public void run(){
jTextArea.append("Test" + "\n");
try {
Thread.sleep(3000);
} catch (InterruptedException e1) {
e1.printStackTrace();
}
jTextArea.append("Test1" + "\n");
}
});
worker.start();
If your tasks are time/cpu intensive, then yes, definitely use a background thread to do this such as a SwingWorker object or a Runnable run in a Thread. If however what you need to do is to stagger the display of something and all you are looking for is the Swing equivalent of Thread.sleep(3000), then your best option is to use a Swing Timer. There is an excellent tutorial on how to use these which you can find here: http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/misc/timer.html
For example:
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import javax.swing.*;
public class Fu extends JPanel {
private static final int TIMER_DELAY = 600;
protected static final int MAX_COUNT = 20;
private JTextArea jTextArea = new JTextArea(10, 10);
private JButton startBtn = new JButton("Start");
private Timer timer;
public Fu() {
startBtn.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
startAction(e);
}
});
add(new JScrollPane(jTextArea, JScrollPane.VERTICAL_SCROLLBAR_ALWAYS,
JScrollPane.HORIZONTAL_SCROLLBAR_AS_NEEDED));
add(startBtn);
}
private void startAction(ActionEvent e) {
if (timer != null && timer.isRunning()) {
// prevent multiple instances of timer from running at same time
return;
}
timer = new Timer(TIMER_DELAY, new ActionListener() {
private int count = 0;
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
if (count < MAX_COUNT) {
count++;
jTextArea.append("Test " + count + "\n");
} else {
jTextArea.append("Done! \n");
timer.stop();
timer = null;
}
}
});
timer.setInitialDelay(0);
timer.start();
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
JFrame frame = new JFrame("Foo");
frame.getContentPane().add(new Fu());
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
frame.pack();
frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
frame.setVisible(true);
}
});
}
}
As pointed out, this is a bad idea, as you will block the event thread.
However, understanding the reason for this is important as well. As you seem to know, all code that affects the state of Swing components needs to happen in the event handling thread (which is the reason why invokeLater and friends should always be used).
What is a bit less better known is that paining code also executes in the event handling thread. When your call to Thread.sleep is executing, it's not only blocking the event thread, it's also blocking any painting of components. This is why the full update appears to happen in one go -- the JTextArea is updated but it can't be repainted until your run method returns.
Lots of info available here: http://java.sun.com/products/jfc/tsc/articles/threads/threads1.html