Of what use is SwingUtilities.invokeAndWait?

Question

hi,
i have a GUI that processes a huge amount of data on each click of the button. By huge, i mean it processes
packs of about 1000 bytes each, but at any given time there could be 25,000,000 or more of them. Hence,
my application is very sensitive to slight shifts in processing speeds for each claim. An extra half a second processing any of these can lead to unacceptable processing times. 2 or 3 hours is OK, but 2 or 3 days is not. Anyways, each time I click on the button to process the process starts, and the GUI stops responding. I have been researching how to get this to stop and I, of course, came across the SwingUtilities.invokeAndWait() method. However, if I can't call it from the EventDispatch thread, of what use is it? I mean, the only time I need it is when a Button is pressed and I start processing data. Is there anything I can do to satisfy my need to maintain speed and a decent looking GUI? I tried calling this.paintAll(this.getGraphics()) a bunch of times, but that makes my screen flash and it seems to take forever and slow my app down way too much. Any ideas Swing gurus? thanks

Answer 1

Ok, so I took one of my shorter processes from my GUI and I put that into its own class that extends thread and I launched it from the eventDispatch thread (the actionPerformed function, i assume they are the same thing) however, my GUI is still not updating. What gives? I did launch a thread, so it seems like my GUI should be responsive. I know the thread was launched because it responds properly, but I still can't get the GUI part to work. Here is a sample of the code:
//here is how i call this...
     else if(E.getSource() == CheckRecordLengthButton){
           CheckForRecordLength CFRL = new CheckForRecordLength(ReferenceFileField.getText(),
                                                                                RFW.getRecordLength(), CheckRecordLengthButton);
       }//end else
//here is the actual class declaration...
class CheckForRecordLength extends Thread{
     String filepath;
     int RL;
     JButton Button;
     public CheckForRecordLength(String Filepath,int rL,JButton button){
                       //do constructor stuff...
     public void run(){
          try {
                          //...do some useful work...
          catch (Exception e) {
               // TODO Auto-generated catch block
               e.printStackTrace();
          }//end catch
     }//end function run
} //end class defso, is there a way to launch this thread and still get the GUI to update? I REALLY appreciate the help....