Splash Screen Appears as a White Rectangle

Question

Hi,
I am trying to show a splash screen in my application, which is to be shown as long as a runtime process has completed execution.
The code i used for the Splash screen is:
import javax.swing.JWindow;
import javax.swing.ImageIcon;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;
import java.awt.MediaTracker;import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.*;
public class Splash implements Runnable
private JWindow splashWindow;
private String message;
protected JLabel label;
public Splash(String initMsg)
this.message = initMsg;
public void run()
label = new JLabel(message);
splashWindow = new JWindow();
splashWindow.getContentPane().add(label, BorderLayout.CENTER);
splashWindow.pack();
splashWindow.setSize(splashWindow.getSize().width, splashWindow.getSize().height);
Dimension dim = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize();
splashWindow.setLocation(dim.width/2 - splashWindow.getWidth() /2,dim.height/2 -
splashWindow.getHeight()/2);
splashWindow.toFront();
splashWindow.show();
public JWindow getWindow()
return splashWindow;
public void close()
splashWindow.dispose();
public void showStatus(final String status)
label.setText(status);
splashWindow.show();
In my main program, i am using the Splash class as follows:
splash = new Splash("Drawing Graph...");
Thread th = new Thread(splash);
th.start();
while (splash.getWindow() == null || !splash.getWindow().isShowing())
try
th.sleep(100);
catch (InterruptedException e){}
try
Thread.sleep(1000);
catch (InterruptedException e) {}
Process proc = null;
proc = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(....some process to draw a graph....);
proc.waitFor();
// deal with the proc streams....
splash.showStatus("Drawing Graph....Done");
splash.close();
The problem is that, the splash window appears as a blank rectangle without any string on in. It appears and closes properly. But, it does not show the status string.
Please help!!!
thanks,
bblak

Answer 1

You're blocking the event dispatch thread so no repaints can be processed.
Take a look at SwingWorker or http://spin.sourceforge.net.
Sven