Animated .gif in JPanel

Question

Hello,
I'm trying to render an animated .gif in a JPanel. I'm overriding paintComponent as follows:
   public void paintComponent(Graphics g)
      super.paintComponent(g);
      // center the background image.
      //backgroundImage is an Image
      if (backgroundImage != null)
         g.drawImage(backgroundImage, (this.getWidth() - backgroundImage
               .getWidth(this)) / 2, (this.getHeight() - backgroundImage
               .getHeight(this)) / 2, this);
   }The problem: I'm only getting the first frame displayed. What do I need to do to properly display the animated image?
Thanks.
Marc

Answer 1

Adding a JLabel is not convenient, nor is it the proper way to do it. The panel has other components and coming up with a layout manager that will overlay components is not the proper thing to do.
Creating a Thread is also not the proper thing to do.
I found a solution that works fine. Instead of using an Image, I create an ImageIcon and use that to display the animated gif.
   public void paintComponent(Graphics g)
      super.paintComponent(g);
      // center the background image.
      // backgroundImage is an ImageIcon
      if (backgroundImage != null)
         g.drawImage(backgroundImage.getImage(), (this.getWidth() - backgroundImage
               .getIconWidth()) / 2, (this.getHeight() - backgroundImage
               .getIconHeight()) / 2, this);
   }Thanks for your help.