How to blink the tab of a minimized JFrame?

Question

Hi,
I am creating a chat software. When a message comes for a specific jframe, how can we start that minimized jframe to blink. In this way, the user knows that message has arrived.
Thanks
Karar Haider

Answer 1

you need to use the Frame.setIconImage() method to change the icon.
in order to flash the icon use something like this (this is for a flashing JLabel, but you can easily change that to flash the icon):
public class FlashLabel extends JLabel implements Runnable {
    public static final int NORMAL_COLOR = 0,
                            FLASH_COLOR = 1;
    private Color           colors[] = new Color[2];
    private int             well = 500;
    public FlashLabel(String text, int horizontalAlignment) {
        super(text, horizontalAlignment);
        colors[NORMAL_COLOR] = getBackground();
    public void setFlashColor(Color c) {
        colors[FLASH_COLOR] = c;
        setOpaque(true);
    public void startFlashing() {
        Thread t = new Thread(this);
        t.start();
    public void setTime(int t) { well = t; }
    public int getTime() { return well; }
    public void run() {
        int current = 0;
        try {
            while (true) {
                setBackground(colors[current]);
                current ^= 1;
                Thread.currentThread().sleep(well);
        } catch (InterruptedException e) { return; }
}you could also add a ComponentListener to your frame to get informed if and when your frames gets iconized in order to do the flashing only if the frame really is minimized.
thomas