Flicker with heavyweight swing component and setVisible(false) on Linux

Question

Hi All,
I'm using Java 6 update 14 on Ubuntu Jaunty.
I'm developing a GUI for a system running linux. I'm using the Swing framework for the GUI but need to include 3D animation accelerated in hardware. I'm using the JOGL framework for applying the 3D animations which supplies one with two swing-like components, the GLJPanel and GLCanvas. These two components are lightweight and heavyweight swing components respectively.
The difficulty arises when adding the heavyweight GLCanvas component into the gui. Often I need to do a setVisible(false) on the component in which case the GLCanvas hides correctly, but shows a flicker before the background is displayed. On digging a little deeper I found that because the GLCanvas is heavyweight, on linux it calls down to the sun.awt.X11 classes to do the setVisible(false) on hide. The very deepest call, the xSetVisible(false) method of the XBaseWindow class, causes the component to be replaced by first a grey backgound, and then the correct background. This intermediate grey background is causing the flicker.
The source for the sun.awt.X11 packages was not available with the standard JDK 6 but I've found the open jdk source which matches the steps taken by the call. The xSetVisible method is as follows:
0667:            public void xSetVisible(boolean visible) {
0668:                if (log.isLoggable(Level.FINE))
0669:                    log.fine("Setting visible on " + this  + " to " + visible);
0670:                XToolkit.awtLock();
0671:                try {
0672:                    this .visible = visible;
0673:                    if (visible) {
0674:                        XlibWrapper.XMapWindow(XToolkit.getDisplay(),
0675:                                getWindow());
0676:                    } else {
0677:                        XlibWrapper.XUnmapWindow(XToolkit.getDisplay(),
0678:                                getWindow());
0679:                    }
0680:                    XlibWrapper.XFlush(XToolkit.getDisplay());
0681:                } finally {
0682:                    XToolkit.awtUnlock();
0683:                }
0684:            }I've found that the XlibWrapper.XFlush(XToolkit.getDisplay()) line (680) causes the grey to appear and then the XToolkit.awtUnlock(); line repaints the correct background.
Using the lightwieght GLJPanel resolves this issue as it is a light weight component but unfortunately I'm unable to use it as the target system does not have the GLX 1.3 libraries required because of intel chipset driver issues (it has GLX 1.2). I cannot enable the opengl pipline either (-Dsun.java2d.opengl=True) for the same reason.
Is there a way to configure a heavyweight component to avoid the operation in line 680? As far as I can tell, the flicker would disappear and the display would still be correctly rendered had this line not been executed. This problem is not present in windows.
I've put together a minimal example of the problem. It requires the JOGL 1.1.1 libraries in the classpath. They can be found here: [JOGL-download|https://jogl.dev.java.net/servlets/ProjectDocumentList?folderID=11509&expandFolder=11509&folderID=11508]
I've also found that running the program with the -Dsun.awt.noerasebackground=true vm argument reduces the flicker to just one incorrect frame.
The program creates a swing app with a button to switch between the GLCanvas and a normal JPanel. When switching from the GLCanvas to the JPanel a grey flicker is noticeable on Linux. Step through the code in debug mode to the classes mentioned above to see the grey flicker frame manifest.
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Insets;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import javax.media.opengl.GLCanvas;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JInternalFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.WindowConstants;
import javax.swing.border.EmptyBorder;
public class SwitchUsingJInternalFrameSwappedExample {
     private static JPanel glPanel;
     private static JPanel mainPanel;
     private static JPanel swingPanel1;
     private static boolean state;
     private static JInternalFrame layerFrame;
     private static GLCanvas glCanvas;
     public static void main(String[] args) {
          state = true;
          JFrame frame = new JFrame();
          frame.setSize(800, 800);
          frame.setContentPane(getMainPanel());
          frame.setVisible(true);
          frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(WindowConstants.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
          frame.setBackground(Color.GREEN);
     // The main component.
     public static JPanel getMainPanel() {
          mainPanel = new JPanel();
          mainPanel.setBackground(new Color(0, 0, 255));
          mainPanel.setBorder(new EmptyBorder(new Insets(20, 20, 20, 20)));
          mainPanel.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
          mainPanel.add(getButton(), BorderLayout.NORTH);
          mainPanel.add(getAnimationPanel(), BorderLayout.CENTER);
          return mainPanel;
     // Switch button.
     private static JButton getButton() {
          JButton button = new JButton("Switch");
          button.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
               @Override
               public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
                    switchToOpenGl();
          return button;
     // Do the switch.
     protected static void switchToOpenGl() {
          // Make the OpenGL overlay visible / invisible.
          if (!state) {
               glCanvas.setVisible(false);
          } else {
               glCanvas.setVisible(true);
          state = !state;
     // Normal swing panel with buttons
     public static JPanel getNormalPanel() {
          if (swingPanel1 == null) {
               swingPanel1 = new JPanel();
               for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
                    swingPanel1.add(new JButton("Asdf" + i));
               swingPanel1.setBackground(Color.black);
          return swingPanel1;
     // Extra panel container just for testing whether background colors show through.
     public static JPanel getAnimationPanel() {
          if (glPanel == null) {
               glPanel = new JPanel(new BorderLayout());
               glPanel.setBorder(new EmptyBorder(new Insets(20, 20, 20, 20)));
               glPanel.setBackground(Color.YELLOW);
               glPanel.add(getLayerFrame(), BorderLayout.CENTER);
          return glPanel;
     // A component that has two layers (panes), one containing the swing components and one containing the OpenGl animation.
     private static JInternalFrame getLayerFrame() {
          if (layerFrame == null) {
               // Create a JInternalFrame that is not movable, iconifyable etc.
               layerFrame = new JInternalFrame(null, false, false, false, false);
               layerFrame.setBackground(new Color(155, 0, 0));
               layerFrame.setVisible(true);     
               // Remove the title bar and border of the JInternalFrame.
               ((javax.swing.plaf.basic.BasicInternalFrameUI) layerFrame.getUI())
                         .setNorthPane(null);
               layerFrame.setBorder(null);
               // Add a normal swing component
               layerFrame.setContentPane(getNormalPanel());
               // Add the OpenGL animation overlay on a layer over the content layer.
               layerFrame.setGlassPane(getGLCanvas());
          return layerFrame;
     // OpenGL component.
     public static GLCanvas getGLCanvas() {
          if (glCanvas == null) {
               glCanvas = new GLCanvas();
               glCanvas.setBackground(Color.CYAN);
          return glCanvas;
}

Answer 1

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