JLabel + Animated GIF: replacing the image

Question

Hi, folks.
I've run into what looks like an interesting glitch, not necessarily functionality-wise but purely cosmetic.
I have a JLabel which needs to be switched between a static image and an animated image at different times of execution. I'm doing this more or less like this:
    private JLabel label = new JLabel();
    private ImageIcon inactiveIcon;
    private ImageIcon activeIcon;
    public MyClass()
        inactiveIcon = Utils.loadIcon(...);
        activeIcon = Utils.loadIcon(...);
        setActive(false);
    public void setActive(boolean active)
        label.setIcon(active ? activeIcon : inactiveIcon);
    }It starts up fine and shows the inactive image, which is not animated.
However, calling setActive(true) seems to cause a flash of grey before showing any animation. The interesting thing is at this point, the image should be completely loaded, so nothing should be blank for any period of time. The other interesting thing is that calling setActive(false) does not cause the flash of grey.
I've checked the image to make sure all the frames are present and that none are blank.
I've tried doing this a number of different ways, by Icon.setImage(Image), also by using two labels and setVisible(boolean).
Has anyone else seen this before? The particular thing which worries me is there isn't a grey flash going the other way. Otherwise I wouldn't think a workaround existed. :-)

Answer 1

Update. I changed the code to this:
label = new JLabel() {
public void update(Graphics g) {
paint(g);
public void paint(Graphics g) {
paintComponent(g);
protected void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
ImageIcon icon = (ImageIcon) getIcon();
icon.paintIcon(this, g, 0, 0);
};It still greys out. :-/
I tried label.setUI(new LabelUI() { ... }) with a
custom paint method also, and it didn't draw anything
at all, for either label.I'm not sure if you accounted for this but the paint method in the UI is different then the 'public void paintComponent(Graphics g)' method and paint (Graphics g) method in components. The method is 'public void paint(Graphics g, JComponent c)'. Overwriting 'public void paint (Graphics g)' in a UI, is like defining a new method alltogether.
Did you also make sure to avoid calling 'super.paintComponent()' when overwriting your 'paintComponent(...)' methods? If you did call it, you aren't preventing drawing of previous shapes. This worked for me when I had to do something similar.
You could also try to draw your icon in your UI, if you haven't done so already.
Regards,
Devyn