Having some problems with ImageIcons and JLabels

Question

I'm making a checkers game, and so far it's going pretty well.
I've got the basic game down, and you can move pieces, jump, your turn ends when you can't jump anymore, etc...
However, I've had three problems:
1.) I'm using JLabels to display my board (8 x 8.. well actually 9 x 9 for an outer row labelled A,B,C,D.. 1,2,3,4...) Anyway, I create the JLabels using something that looks like \:
JLabel square = new JLabel(new ImageIcon("pic.png"));
Now, the picture loads properly, but it seems like the picture is being cropped, and the top and bottom are getting chopped off, so my 36 x 36 pixel *.gif appears to be 36 x 30.
You can see how there is a gap created in:
http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/7765/prob13ky.jpg
Now the problem may be with the GridLayout I am using, but I set the distance between the components in the container to be 0, 0 so I don't think that GridLayout is chopping my icons. I've also tried setPreferredSize(new Dimension(36,36))
for both my ImageIcons and JLabels and for my container (which I set to size 2000,2000, just to make sure there was room). If anyone can help me, it's be appreciated.
2.) I used to be able to view my outside row/column of squares that said A,B,C,D.... and 1,2,3,4... with the square in the corner having a random pic. For some reason now (have no clue why) I now see only the pic in the corner, and then a little gray smudge diagonally under it.
Pic:
http://img347.imageshack.us/img347/8308/prob24im.jpg
I don't know what's wrong. I'm pretty sure it's none of the new methods I've written, as those are all in my static void main (String[] ar) ...... and if I comment all the methods in my main except where I first make the JFrame and set it visible, it still turns out like that. repaint() doesn't help.
3.) For some reason, when I move another window (AIM, the console window, etc...) over my Swing window, it "erases" (turns gray, just wipes clean) the part where I have my squares that have pieces.
What's weird is that:
The border pieces (err.. my one visible corner piece from my second problem) don't get wiped, and some debugging text and JLabels (in a different JPanel) are fine. I don't think the JPanel matters though; the border pieces and the playing squares (which get wiped) are in the same JPanel and same array of squares.
repaint(); also erases ALL of my playing squares, whereas moving a window over them would only erase the part that the window covered.
Also, I added a mouseListener so that whenever I move the mouse over a square, it changes the image (to a tinted version, so you know the mouse is over it) and when you move the mouse away, it returns to normal. However, if I wildly swing the mouse around the area, it seems to lock up and freeze for a few seconds. Is there anything I can do to prevent this??
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

It is hard to tell what your problems are without any code at all (I saw your images, but that doesn't make it easy to see what is wrong in your code). If you do post code, please use code tags (see button above posting box).
I've seen your MouseListener problem before--we had the exact same issue in our code at work. It would freeze up while it processed all of the mouse events (unbearably slow). I'm not at work right now, so I don't recall how it was fixed. Essentially, you need to only process the event periodically. You need to only update the image if the mouse switches squares. Or, only update the image if the distance from the last mouse event is more than some specified amount. We might also have checked the time difference between mouse events before processing a new one. I could look at the code at work tomorrow, if you are still having trouble.