Develop Reference

JProgressBar update and thread scheduling

Hello stack exchangers,
I have a problem with progress bars in java Swing. I think my confusions arise from my poor understanding of threads and the Swing event queue (I don't know much about java Threads, and exactly what is happening on the AWTEventQueue, although I generally understand what multithreading is about).
The context is that a JButton is pressed to start a long calculation. Before the calculation starts, I make a progress bar in a JFrame, which I thought would be painted, but it isn't. The frame appears, but it is just grey. The button, in this example has "clickMe" written on it.
In the "clickMe" action listener, I first make and display a JFrame in a subtask which is "run" (I'm not clear on when this is scheduled TBH). Then, I call doTask() which is running in the same thread as the action listener (which I think is the AWTEventThread??). The doTask() runs, printing out numbers to the Console. Intermixed with the doTask() output are iteration counts of the progressbar (from when the action listener started makeProgressBar()).
So, from the output, it looks like both the progress bar is running and the AWTEventThread, but the value set in the JProgressBar GUI is never updated.
How can I change my code so that the GUI gets updated? I've tried understanding the JProgressBar tutorial and hunted around the web, but I think my problem is more a conceptual understanding of Java Tasks.
This is my code:
package problemclass;
import java.awt.EventQueue;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JProgressBar;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;
public class ProblemClass
{
void progressBarButtonClick()
{
JFrame buttonInAFrame = new JFrame();
JPanel buttonInAFramePanel = new JPanel();
JButton clickMe = new JButton("Click me!");
buttonInAFramePanel.add(clickMe);
clickMe.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
{
JFrame progBarFrame = makeProgressBar();
doTask();
progBarFrame.dispose();
}
});
buttonInAFrame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE);
buttonInAFrame.add(buttonInAFramePanel);
buttonInAFrame.pack();
buttonInAFrame.setVisible(true);
}
private void doTask()
{
for(int i = 0; i < 20000; i++)
{
if (i % 100 == 0)
{
System.out.println("TASK iteration " + i);
try
{
Thread.sleep(1000);
}
catch (InterruptedException e) {}
}
}
}
private JFrame makeProgressBar()
{
JFrame progBarFrame = new JFrame();
JPanel progBarPanel = new JPanel();
JProgressBar progressBar = new JProgressBar();
progBarPanel.add(progressBar);
progressBar.setValue(0);
progressBar.setStringPainted(true);
progressBar.setIndeterminate(true);
new Thread(new Runnable()
{
public void run()
{
for (int i = 0; i <= 100; i++)
{
final int j = i;
System.out.println("Progress Iteration " + j);
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable()
{
public void run()
{
progressBar.setValue(j);
}
});
try
{
java.lang.Thread.sleep(100);
}
catch(Exception e) { }
}
}
}).start();
progBarFrame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE);
progBarFrame.add(progBarPanel);
progBarFrame.pack();
progBarFrame.setVisible(true);
return progBarFrame;
}
public static void main(String[] args)
{
EventQueue.invokeLater(() ->
{
new ProblemClass().progressBarButtonClick();
});
}
}

JFrame progBarFrame = makeProgressBar();
doTask();
Not sure exactly what you are trying to do.
The above code has two loops:
In the makePrgressBar() method you start a Thread and invoke SwingUtilities.invokeLater(…), to update the progress bar, which is correct.
but then in doTack() you start another loop. This time you don't start a Thread so the code is invoked on the EDT and since you use Thread.sleep, the EDT will sleep and the GUI will not repaint itself until the entire loop is finished.
I would suggest you get rid of the doTask() method since I don't know why you need two blocks of code that loop. Or if you really need it, then you also need to use a Thread and invokeLater(…).

Just like you, I recently did some work on progress bars and threading and went nuts until I realized that it is just so simple.In a nutshell this is the code I have when my button is clicked:
// Create 2 threads. One handles your GUI. Other does the task
Thread t1 = new Thread(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
// code goes here.
//In here I choose to hide the button, display the progress bar
}
});
t1.start();
Thread t2 = new Thread(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
// code goes here.
//In here I get the task done, then hide the progress bar
}
});
t2.start();
Works like a charm every time. Hope it helps!

How to make a countdown timer in Java? [duplicate]

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.

Show / update components before process finished

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.

how do I make my program check the stock market value every hour[java]

I am making a program to check the stock market for a symbol and I got that far, and added a basic gui to it. I am stumped on how to make it check every hour and create a green up arrow if it increased and red down arrow if it decreased.
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.io.IOException;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JTextField;
import org.jsoup.Jsoup;
import org.jsoup.nodes.Document;
import org.jsoup.select.Elements;
public class QuoteTracker {
JFrame frame;
JPanel mainPanel;
JLabel enterLabel;
JLabel resultLabel;
JTextField text;
JTextField result;
JButton query;
JButton redArrow;
JButton greenArrow;
String url;
public static void main(String[] args) {
new QuoteTracker().buildGui();
}
public class checkingQuote implements Runnable {
#Override
public void run() {
while (true) {
try {
checkQuote(url);
//if increase in value green button
System.out.println("Sleeping");
Thread.sleep(1000 * 60 * 60);
System.out.println("Waking");
} catch (InterruptedException ie) {
ie.printStackTrace();
break;
}
}
}
}
public void checkQuote(String symbol) {
try {
String url = "http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=" + symbol + "&ql=0";
this.url = url;
Document doc = Jsoup.connect(url).get();
Elements css = doc.select("p > span:first-child > span");
result.setText(css.text());
} catch (IOException e) {
}
}
public void buildGui() {
frame = new JFrame("QuoteTracker");
mainPanel = new JPanel();
enterLabel = new JLabel("enter symbol ");
resultLabel = new JLabel("result ");
text = new JTextField(4);
result = new JTextField(8);
query = new JButton("query");
query.addActionListener(new queryListener());
mainPanel.add(enterLabel);
mainPanel.add(text);
mainPanel.add(query);
mainPanel.add(resultLabel);
mainPanel.add(result);
frame.getContentPane().add(mainPanel);
frame.setSize(300, 400);
frame.setVisible(true);
frame.pack();
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
}
class queryListener implements ActionListener {
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ev) {
checkQuote(text.getText());
}
}
}
Do I even need a thread? I've never made one before and tried to add things that made sense. I am thinking I either need a thread or to use java's Timer?

Use SwingWorker to execute long running task in the background while updating the UI based on some results from that long running task. That means, it is actually about two different threads communicating to each other - Worker Threads and Event Dispatch Thread (EDT)
But before that, I want to point some few notes about your code.
Invoke the initialization of your UI in the EDT. That is, instead of just straightly calling new QuoteTracker().buildGui(), call it inside the run method of a Runnable passed to SwingUtilities.invokeLater (like this)
Classes should start in capital letter as per the Java standard.
To apply SwingWorker in you existing code, you can do the following :
First, you must place your checkQuote method in some other class (ideally a service class) then modify your checkQuote method to return the String that is set to the textfield result. Something like this
public Class QuoteService{
public String checkQuote(String symbol) {
try {
String url = "http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=" + symbol + "&ql=0";
this.url = url;
Document doc = Jsoup.connect(url).get();
Elements css = doc.select("p > span:first-child > span");
return css.text();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
return "";
}
}
You can then make your QuoteTracker class to focus mainly in the UI part of your application. Just create the service object as instance level field so that you can freely call checkQuote method within your the class.
Invoke SwingWorker when the button is clicked.
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ev) {
new SwingWorker<Void, String>() {
#Override // this method is done in the Worker Thread
protected Void doInBackground() throws Exception {
while(true){
String res = checkQuote(text.getText());
publish(res); //will call the process method
Thread.sleep(1000 * 60 * 60); //1 hour
}
}
#Override // this method is done in the EDT
protected void process(List<String> resultList){
String res = resultList.get(0);
if(!"".equals(res)){
result.setText(res);
}
}
#Override // this method is done in the EDT. Executed after executing the doInBackground() method
protected void done() {
//... clean up
}
}.execute();
}
Note that done() will be executed after the execution of doInBackground() is finished, which means, in the code I posted, it will never be executed since the while loop used to periodically call checkQuote is infinite. Just modify it so that you can interrupt that loop according to your need
Further Read : Concurrency in Swing

You can use thread and normal while loop in main thread as well, but at the very first , you need to start you thread and that thread must refer your object.
Add following line in public void buildGui() {
Thread t1 = new Thread(new checkingQuote());
t1.start();
This will start you thread, for testing purpose i have modified checkingQuote class
public class checkingQuote implements Runnable {
int count = 0;
#Override
public void run() {
System.out.println("Inside Runner");
while (true) {
try {
count++;
checkQuote(url);
//if increase in value green button
result.setText(""+count);
System.out.println("Sleeping");
Thread.sleep(1000);
System.out.println("Waking");
} catch (InterruptedException ie) {
ie.printStackTrace();
break;
}
}
}
}
I am seeing number change in the text box.... same way you can alter the logic to get and show the quotes.. but you must keep the value for previous quote to compare with the latest code to show green and red notification...

In gui application it is better to use Timer, also you may use ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor. But in the second case notice, that your scheduled tasks may run in non-GUI thread. As you can't invoke ATW/Swing directly from another thread, you should wrap any call to Swing into SwingUtilities.invokeLater() method.
Also notice, that when you do something durable inside GUI thread, the whole GUI becomes unrepsonsive. So, to achieve a better responsiveness, you would query in a separate thread, and expose results to Swing through invokeLater after quotes have checked. So your checkQuote method may be rewritten this way:
public void checkQuote(String symbol) {
try {
final String url = "http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=" + symbol + "&ql=0";
Document doc = Jsoup.connect(url).get();
Elements css = doc.select("p > span:first-child > span");
final String text = css.text();
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
#Override public void run() {
this.url = url;
result.setText(text);
}
}
} catch (IOException e) {
// Don't swallow exceptions
logger.error("Something gone wrong", e);
}
}
public void checkQuote() {
final String symbol = text.getText();
new Thread(new Runnable() {
#Override public void run() {
checkQuote(symbol);
}
}).start();
}
and call it from Timer and from button click listener.

Run and pause a GUI background thread by clicking a button

I need to run a background thread in my Java GUI that only runs when I click a button and pauses when I click that button again. I am not exactly sure how to set this up, but I have placed a thread in my constructor and the while loop within is set to go through when I set a specific boolean to TRUE. One button switches from setting this boolean TRUE or FALSE.
Everything else I have in this GUI works fine. When I tried debugging the thread, it actually works as I step through the thread but nothing when I try running the GUI completely. The GUI is rather large so I'm gonna put up a portion of the constructor and the action listener of the button. The rest of the code is unnecessary since it works just fine. I need to know what I am doing wrong here:
public BasketballGUI() {
// certain labels and buttons
Thread runningSim = new Thread() {
public void run() {
while(simRun) {
// do stuff here
}
}
};
runningSim.start();
}
// other GUI stuff
// actionListener that should run the thread.
class SimButtonListener implements ActionListener {
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent arg0) {
if(!simRun) {
simRun = true;
sim.setText("Pause Simulator");
}
else if(simRun) {
simRun = false;
sim.setText("Run Simulator");
}
// other stuff in this actionListener
}
}

Establish a Swing based Timer with an ActionListener that will be called repeatedly.
In the actionPerformed(ActionEvent) method call repaint().
Start the timer (Timer.start()) when the user clicks Start
Stop the timer (Timer.stop()) when the user clicks Stop
If you cannot get it working from that description, I suggest you post an SSCCE of your best attempt.
I thought I had one 'lying around'.. Try this working SSCCE which uses images created in this SSCCE.

I could see this background thread useful for a Java GUI when handling button events to affect something like a text area or progress bar.
For the sake of argument, I will build you a tiny GUI that affects a Text Area. I hope this helps you.
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicBoolean;
import javax.swing.*;
public class TestClass extends JPanel {
super("TestClass - Title");
private AtomicBoolean paused;
private JTextArea jta;
private JButton btn;
private Thread thread;
public TestClass() {
paused = new AtomicBoolean(false);
jta = new JTextArea(100, 100);
btn = new JButton();
initialize();
}
public void initialize() {
jta.setLineWrap(true);
jta.setWrapStyleWord(true);
add(new JScrollPane(jta));
btn.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(100, 100));
btn.setText("Pause");
btn.addActionListener(new ButtonListener());
add(btn);
Runnable runnable = new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
while(true) {
for(int i = 0; i < Integer.MAX_VALUE; i++) {
if(paused.get()) {
synchronized(thread) {
try {
thread.wait();
} catch(InterruptedException e) {
}
}
}
}
jta.append(Integer.toString(i) + ", ");
try {
Thread.sleep(500);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
}
}
}
};
thread = new Thread(runnable);
thread.start();
}
#Override
public Dimension getPreferredSize() {
return new Dimension(100, 30);
}
class ButtonListener implements ActionListener {
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event) {
if(!paused.get()) {
btn.setText("Start");
paused.set(true);
} else {
btn.setText("Pause");
paused.set(false);
synchronized(thread) {
thread.notify();
}
}
}
}
}
Main class to call everything.
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;
public class MainClass {
public static void main(final String[] arg) {
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
JFrame frame = new JFrame();
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
frame.add(new TestClass());
frame.pack();
frame.setVisible(true);
frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
}
});
}
}
I did not test this code to see if it works exactly, Its main goal is to break you through your coders block and use my components to fix your issue. Hope this helped. Need anything else Email me at DesignatedSoftware#gmail.com