Animated GIF image gets distorted while playing.

Question

Hi,
I have some animated gif images which I need to show in a jLabel and a jTextPane. But some of these images are getting distorted while playing in the two components, though these images are playing properly in Internet Explorer. I am using the methods insertIcon() of jTextPane and setIcon() of jLabel to add or set the gif images in the two components. Can you please suggest any suitable idea of how I can get rid of this distortion? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

In the code below is a self contained JComponent that paints a series of BufferedImages as an animation. You can pause the animation, and you specify the delay. It also has two static methods for loading all the frames from a File or a URL.
Feel free to add functionality to it, like the ability to display text or manipulate the animation. You may wan't the class to extend JLabel instead of JComponent. Just explore around with the painting. If you have any questions, then feel free to post.
The downside to working with an array of BufferedImages, though, is that they consume more memory then a single Toolkit gif image.
import javax.swing.JComponent;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.awt.Graphics;
import javax.imageio.ImageIO;
import javax.imageio.ImageReader;
import javax.imageio.stream.ImageInputStream;
public class JAnimationLabel extends JComponent {
    /**The default animation delay.  100 milliseconds*/
    public static final int DEFAULT_DELAY = 100;
    private BufferedImage[] images;
    private int currentIndex;
    private int delay;
    private boolean paused;
    private boolean exited;
    private final Object lock = new Object();
    //the maximum image width and height in the image array
    private int maxWidth;
    private int maxHeight;
    public JAnimationLabel(BufferedImage[] animation) {
        if(animation == null)
            throw new NullPointerException("null animation!");
        for(BufferedImage frame : animation)
            if(frame == null)
                throw new NullPointerException("null frame in animation!");
        images = animation;
        delay = DEFAULT_DELAY;
        paused = false;
        for(BufferedImage frame : animation) {
            maxWidth = Math.max(maxWidth,frame.getWidth());
            maxHeight = Math.max(maxHeight,frame.getHeight());
        setPreferredSize(new java.awt.Dimension(maxWidth,maxHeight));
    //This method is called when a component is connected to a native
    //resource.  It is an indication that we can now start painting.
    public void addNotify() {
        super.addNotify();
        //Make anonymous thread run animation loop.  Alternative
        //would be to make the AnimationLabel class extend Runnable,
        //but this would allow innapropriate use.
        exited = false;
        Thread runner = new Thread(new Runnable() {
            public void run() {
                runAnimation();
        runner.setDaemon(true);
        runner.start();
    public void removeNotify() {
        exited = true;
        super.removeNotify();
    /**Returns the animation delay in milliseconds.*/
    public int getDelay() {return delay;}
    /**Sets the animation delay between two
     * consecutive frames in milliseconds.*/
    public void setDelay(int delay) {this.delay = delay;}
    /**Returns whether the animation is currently paused.*/
    public boolean isPaused() {
        return exited?true:paused;}
    /**Makes the animation paused or resumes the painting.*/
    public void setPaused(boolean paused) {
        synchronized(lock) {
            this.paused = paused;
            lock.notify();
    private void runAnimation() {
        while(!exited) {
            repaint();
            if(delay > 0) {
                try{Thread.sleep(delay);}
                catch(InterruptedException e) {
                    System.err.println("Animation Sleep interupted");
            synchronized(lock) {
                while(paused) {
                    try{lock.wait();}
                    catch(InterruptedException e) {}
    public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
        if(g == null) return;
        java.awt.Rectangle bounds = g.getClipBounds();
        //center image on label
        int x = (getWidth()-maxWidth)/2;
        int y = (getHeight()-maxHeight)/2;
        g.drawImage(images[currentIndex], x, y,this);
        if(bounds.x == 0 && bounds.y == 0 &&
           bounds.width == getWidth() && bounds.height == getHeight()) {
             //increment frame for the next time around if the bounds on
             //the graphics object represents a full repaint
             currentIndex = (currentIndex+1)%images.length;
        }else {
            //if partial repaint then we do not need to
            //increment to the the next frame
}