Dialog.show () does not return

Question

the documentation for java.awt.Dialog.show () says "If the dialog is modal and is not already visible, this call will not return until the dialog is hidden by calling hide or dispose.", but I was wondering why it does that and if theres any way to get around it...
I want to have a Frame with a modal Dialog, show the Frame only, then when a button is pressed in the Frame show the Dialog, call some methods, put a message in the Dialog to say that it's finished, then have the user close the Dialog to ensure they saw the message. When the button is pressed, though, my program calls Dialog.show () and gets stuck there.
...I don't want to make it non-modal and I don't just want to show the Dialog after I've called all the methods - it should be showing the whole time.
Any suggestions?
Thanks, John

Answer 1

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
public class DialogTest
    Dialog dialog;
    Label label;
    public DialogTest()
        Frame f = new Frame();
        initDialog(f);
        f.addWindowListener(new WindowAdapter()
            public void windowClosing(WindowEvent e)
                System.exit(0);
        f.add(getPanel(), "North");
        f.setSize(300,200);
        f.setLocation(200,200);
        f.setVisible(true);
    private void initDialog(Frame f)
        label = new Label("dialog label", Label.CENTER);
        dialog = new Dialog(f, "modal", true);
        dialog.addWindowListener(new WindowAdapter()
            public void windowClosing(WindowEvent e)
                dialog.dispose();
        dialog.add(label);
        dialog.setSize(200,100);
        dialog.setLocationRelativeTo(f);
    private void showDialog()
        new Thread(new Runnable()
            public void run()
                dialog.setVisible(true);
        }).start();
        label.setText("after call to setVisible");
    private Panel getPanel()
        Button launch = new Button("launch dialog");
        launch.addActionListener(new ActionListener()
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
                showDialog();
                System.out.println("after call to showDialog");
        Panel panel = new Panel();
        panel.add(launch);
        return panel;
    public static void main(String[] args)
        new DialogTest();
}