Creating a splash screen for your app.

Question

Im trying to create a splash screen for my app but im not too sure how it's done.
Im using the following piece of code.
public static void main(String[] args)
          JPanel display = new JPanel();
          display.setPreferredSize(new Dimension( (300), (200) ));
          display.setBackground(Color.white);
               // I WILL PUT AN IMAGE ICON ON A JLABEL HERE              
          display.setVisible(true);
               // I WILL NEED A DELAY HERE
          test.instance();
}The problem I am having is that the JPanel is not being displayed. I will also need a way to create a delay, I know that I can't just use Thread.sleep(5000); because the JPanel will require the thread to be running in order to display the panel.
Does anyone know how I could get my JPanel to display and somehow insert a delay before test.instance();?
Thanks.

Answer 1

I made my own a few days before for a database program. It can be easily done with Threads.
I recommend you create a new class to be used as the spalsh screen , it has to extends JFrame and implements Runnable.
I ll give you an example. I used the spash screen to display the screen and also to laod the main GUI form so that when the spash screen dispose, the main GUI form displays instantly, making the user think that the application loads faster.
public void run ()
        try
             this.setVisible(true);
             Thread.sleep(2000);
             // sets the menu visible before disposing
             guiMenu.setVisible(true);
             // disposes the object and returns the resources to the OS
             this.dispose();
        catch(InterruptedException exception)
            exception.printStackTrace();
// this method must be implement in the class
// that implements Runnable interface
//MAIN
public class Main
    public static void main(String[] args)
        Menu menu = new Menu();
        SplashScreen introScreen = new SplashScreen(menu);
        ExecutorService splashExecutor= Executors.newFixedThreadPool(1);
        splashExecutor.execute(introScreen);       
}ExecutorService is a subinterface of Executor that declares methods for managing the threads. It also has the method execute (that provides the Executor interface) which when invoked calls the method public void run() of the argument class that must implement Runnable.
Executors.newFixedThreadPool(1); creates a poll consisting of a 1 thread which is been used by splashExecutor to execute the Runnable.
Hope i've been of some assistance!