Button only visible after method setting it visible has terminated

Question

Hello all,
I guess I am now at the edge of the Java technology where I am not very familiar with the internals of that language. Apologies for being uninformed.
My problem is the following: I have a button that is constructed in this way:
protected JButton getButtonMetadataAndFilesUpload() {
          if (buttonMetadataAndFilesUpload == null) {
               buttonMetadataAndFilesUpload = new JButton();
               buttonMetadataAndFilesUpload.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
                    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
                         labelProcessingOnServer.setVisible(true);
                         buttonServerActivity.setVisible(true);
                         sendDataToServerAndCopyDataToFinalLocation();
               buttonMetadataAndFilesUpload.setBounds(508, 11, 236, 43);
               buttonMetadataAndFilesUpload.setText("Upload Metadata and Files");
          return buttonMetadataAndFilesUpload;
     }What I am trying here is to set a button visible only if this above "upload button" is being pressed . What I get is the following: When I press the button, the method sendDataToServerAndCopyDataToFinalLocation() is being executed and only after it has finished the button appears. I guess this is a problem of synchronization, right? What do I have to do to make it appear_before_ the method sendDataToServerAndCopyDataToFinalLocation() is being executed? I am sorry if I miss here some Java coding fundamentals, but maybe someone can help me out.
Thanks in advance again
Jan Peters-Anders

Answer 1

Try putting the call to your method: sendDataToServerAndCopyDataToFinalLocation();
in an invokeLater call.
i.e.
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable()
public synchronized void run()
sendDataToServerAndCopyDataToFinalLocation();
You may wish to read this page: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/misc/threads.html