Fundamental question: disable the GUI while RMI is communicating?

Question

Good afternoon,
I'm using RMI in a swing application and i have fundamental question:
I have a jlist with categories and another jlist which displays the items of the selected category. When a user selects a category rmi is used to get the items of the selected category from the server (internet).
Should i disable the whole application while rmi is communicating with the server? For example with a glasspane with a cancel button.
What is the best practice in this case?
Best regards,
James

Answer 1

I found a really nice solution, now i call my remote methods like:
taskManager.executeAction(new ITaskResult(){
      public void done(Object result) {
        Collections.sort(rpcs, new RpcComperator());
        fireContentsChanged(this, 0, getSize());
      public void failed(Exception e) {
        WindowUtils.showErrorDialog(owner, "Could not change server");
    }, new IAction(){
      public Object action() throws DBException, AccessException {
        return taskManager.getBasic().changeRpc(rpc);
    }, true);The first parameter of executeAction() is a object which gets notified when a task completes (done()) or fails (failed()). The second parameter is a object which indicates which remote functions should be called. And finally the third parameter defines if the user should wait until the remote function completes.
If the user should wait the executeAction() function shows a nice modal dialog with a progressbar and a cancel button. If the user doesn't have to wait it takes the progressbar on the statusbar to indicate the system is busy.
Much rewriting was needed, but i think it is quite simple and it is fully swing thread save. But it wonders me that such a thing wasn't available.