Different ways to setup applets... what's best?

Question

Alright. I need some help deciding how to setup an applet. I'm a high school student and I'm going to be in a competition on Saturday that will be using Java applets. I've been trying to get my hands on as much info about it as I can, but I've seen so many different ways of displaying things on an applet that I'm not sure what to do anymore.
So here's the deal. In a book I have, they set up applets like this:
import javax.swing.*;
public class Example extends JApplet
   public void init()
      getContentPane().add(new ExamplePanel ());
      set size (300, 300)
}And the other class:
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class ExamplePanel extends JPanel
   private vars
   public ExamplePanel ()
      set up listeners and set background
   public void paintComponent (Graphics page)
      super.paintComponent (page);
      paint stuff
   event methods
}I'm pretty sure this works fine, but while on the Java website, looking for examples, I noticed that sun sets up applets like this:
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.event.*;
public class Example extends JPanel implements listener interfaces
   protected and private vars
   public Example ()
      set up panels, labels, basically any JComponent stuff
      create listeners
      use add(...) to put stuff on applet
   event methods
   private static void createAndShowGUI()
        JFrame frame = new JFrame ("Example");
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation (JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        JComponent newContentPane = new Example();
        newContentPane.setOpaque (true);
        frame.setContentPane (newContentPane);
        frame.pack();
        frame.setVisible(true);
    public static void main()
        javax.swing.SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable()
            public void run()
                createAndShowGUI();
}I don't know which way is better, but we don't have much time so I need something that's easy. The problem with the second one is that I don't know how to draw shapes on the second one and I might need to do that. I tried using paintComponent in it and things just got screwy. If anyone knows of a better way, please let me know. And since that one was developed directly from Sun, I'm guessing it's more efficient, so I would like to use that one if I can just learn how to use it as easily as the first.
Also, if anyone knows a completely different way to do this that's better, please let me know.

Answer 1

The second Example class shows an important issue: swing is not thread safe, and thus all GUI operations, including creating the GUI itself, must be done in the event dispatch thread. Read more about it at http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/misc/threads.html#EDT.
The second class Example does also not seem to be an applet, that is why main() is used instead of init(). But even in init() you are not guaranteed that the current thread is the EDT - it is choosen by the browser you are using - and you should thus use invokeLater() there as well.
Appart from that, a component should not care if it is displayed in an applet or in an application.