How to display hourglass until request is finished

Question

I want to display an hourglass (or alike) when a user clicks a button and has to wait several seconds until request is finished.
How can I do this?
Where can i find some simple examples?
Where can I find other 'objects' to be used instead of an hourglass?

Answer 1

package wait;
* WaitCursorDemo.java
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.SwingWorker;
import test.*;
public class WaitCursorDemo extends JFrame {
    private SwingWorker worker ;
    private JButton btStart;
    private JLabel lb;
    public WaitCursorDemo() {
        setDefaultCloseOperation(WindowConstants.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        setSize(400,300);
        setLocationRelativeTo(null);
        btStart = new JButton("Start");
        add(btStart, BorderLayout.NORTH);
        lb = new JLabel();
        add(lb);
        btStart.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
            public void actionPerformed(final ActionEvent e) {
                start();
    private void start(){
        worker = new SwingWorker() {
            protected Object doInBackground() throws Exception {
                setCursor(Cursor.getPredefinedCursor(Cursor.WAIT_CURSOR));
                lb.setText("Please wait...");
                try{Thread.sleep(3000);}catch(InterruptedException ex){}
                setCursor(Cursor.getDefaultCursor());
                lb.setText("Done");
                return null;
        worker.execute();
    public static void main(final String args[]) {
        EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
            public void run() {
                new WaitCursorDemo().setVisible(true);
     If you don't have JDK6, you need to download and compile the "SwingWorker" source code
     to be able to use it. Here it is:
     http://java.sun.com/products/jfc/tsc/articles/threads/src/SwingWorker.java
     The API is a little different:
        worker = new SwingWorker() {
            public Object construct() {
                setCursor(new Cursor(Cursor.WAIT_CURSOR));
                lb.setText("Please wait...");
                try{Thread.sleep(3000);}catch(InterruptedException ex){}
                setCursor(new Cursor(Cursor.DEFAULT_CURSOR));
                lb.setText("Done");
                return null;
        worker.start();
}Message was edited by:
Andre_Uhres
Message was edited by:
Andre_Uhres