Need Help to update the labels in the GUI syncronously - Swing application

Question

Hello everyone,
I need some help regarding a swing application. I am not able to syncronously update the counters and labels that display on my Swing GUI as the application runs in the background. But when the running of application is completed, then the labels on the GUI are getting updated, But I want update the labels and counters on the GUI syncronously as the code executes... below I am giving the format of the code I have written..............
public class SwingApp extends JFrame{
        // here i have declared the label and component varibles like...
                  private JTextField startTextField;
       private JComboBox maxComboBox;
       private JTextField logTextField;
       private JTextField searchTextField;
       private JLabel imagesDownloaded1;
       private JLabel imagesDownloaded2;
       private JLabel imagesDidnotDownload1;
       private JLabel imagesDidnotDownload2;
                  private JButton startButton;
//now in the constructer.............
public Swing(){
//I used gridbaglayout and wrote the code for the GUI to appear....
startButton = new JButton("Start Downloading");
    startButton.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
      public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
        try{
             actionSearch();   //actionSearch will contain all the code and the function calls of my application...........
        }catch(Exception e1){
             System.out.println(e1);
    constraints = new GridBagConstraints();
    constraints.gridwidth = GridBagConstraints.REMAINDER;
    constraints.insets = new Insets(5, 5, 5, 5);
    layout.setConstraints(startButton, constraints);
    searchPanel.add(startButton);
//update is a function which initiates a thread which updates the GUI. this function will be called to pass the required variables in the application
public void update(final int count_hits, final int counter_image_download1, final int didnot_download1) throws Exception{
     Thread thread = new Thread(new Runnable() {
         public void run() {
              System.out.println("entered into thread");
              System.out.println("the variable that has to be set is " + count_hits);
              server_hits_count.repaint(count_hits);
              server_hits_count.setText( " "+ Integer.toString(count_hits));
              imagesDownloaded2.setText(" " + Integer.toString(counter_image_download1));
              imagesDidnotDownload2.setText(" " + Integer.toString(didnot_download1));
              repaint();
     //this.update(count_hits);
     thread.start();
//Now in main............................
public static void main(String[] args){
Swing s = new Swing();
s.setVisible(true);
}//end of main
}//end of class SwingAbove I have given the skeleton code of my application........ Please tell me how to update the GUI syncronously...
Please its a bit urgent...............
Thank you very much in advance
chaitanya

Answer 1

First off, note that this question should have been posted in the Swing section.
GUI events run in a separate thread (the AWT / Event Dispatch Thread) than your program.
You should be invoking AWT/Swing events via SwingUtilities.invokeLater().
If for whatever reason you want to have the program thread wait for the event to process
you can use invokeAndWait().
http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/javax/swing/SwingUtilities.html