Swing Dialog not Showing Content

Question

Hello,
I am currently developing code for a complex GUI system and I am experiencing a big problem
when I try to popup JDialogs. I have a JProgressBar inside a JDialog that pops up when our
system is doing work. The JDialog pops up but I cannot see the JProgressBar inside the dialog.
(I also tried to just add a JLabel to the dialog but that doesnt show up either.) When I run my progress
dialog "stand-alone" I can see the progress bar fine.
The code for my progress dialog even creates its own thread when it runs so I am pretty sure that
its not blocking inside my own code.
This leads me to believe that somewhere in our GUI code we have somehow "blocked" some critical
AWT (or Swing?) thread and it cannot update the contents of the JDialog.
Does anyone have an idea as to what could be going on here or how I might find out? I have tried using
JProbe and Optimizeit Thread profiling tools but they have not really been much help.
Thanks!
M.
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Component;
import java.awt.Dialog;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.Frame;
import java.awt.Point;
import javax.swing.JDialog;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JProgressBar;
import javax.swing.SwingConstants;
public class ProgressAnimationDialog implements Runnable {
     private static final Dimension DIALOGSIZE = new Dimension(200,100);
     private JDialog theDialog;
     private JProgressBar progressBar = new JProgressBar();
     private String string = null;
     private Component owner = null;
     private boolean plainDialog = false;
     public ProgressAnimationDialog(Frame owner, String title) {
          theDialog = new JDialog(owner,true);
          theDialog.setTitle(title);
          this.owner = owner;
          init();
     public ProgressAnimationDialog(Dialog owner, String title) {
          theDialog = new JDialog(owner,true);
          theDialog.setTitle(title);
          this.owner = owner;
          init();
     public ProgressAnimationDialog(Frame owner, String title, String message) {
          theDialog = new JDialog(owner,true);
          theDialog.setTitle(title);
          string = message;
          this.owner = owner;
          init();
     public ProgressAnimationDialog(Dialog owner, String title, String message) {
          theDialog = new JDialog(owner,true);
          theDialog.setTitle(title);
          string = message;
          this.owner = owner;
          init();
     public ProgressAnimationDialog(Frame owner, String title, String message, boolean usePlainDialog) {
          theDialog = new JDialog(owner,true);
          theDialog.setTitle(title);
          string = message;
          this.owner = owner;
          plainDialog = usePlainDialog;
          init();
     public ProgressAnimationDialog(Dialog owner, String title, String message, boolean usePlainDialog) {
          theDialog = new JDialog(owner,true);
          theDialog.setTitle(title);
          string = message;
          this.owner = owner;
          plainDialog = usePlainDialog;
          init();
     private void init() {
          theDialog.setSize(DIALOGSIZE);
          theDialog.setResizable(false);          
          theDialog.getContentPane().setLayout(new BorderLayout());
          if (!plainDialog) {
               theDialog.getContentPane().add(progressBar,BorderLayout.CENTER);
               progressBar.setIndeterminate(true);
               if (string != null) {
                    progressBar.setStringPainted(true);
                    progressBar.setString(string);
          } else {
               JLabel label = new JLabel("loading region....",SwingConstants.CENTER);               
               theDialog.getContentPane().add(label,BorderLayout.CENTER);
     public void start() {
          Thread t = new Thread(this);
          t.start();
     public void run() {
          Point p0 = owner.getLocation();
          Point p1 = new Point();
          p1.setLocation(p0.getX()+owner.getWidth()/2.0,p0.getY()+owner.getHeight()/2.0);
          Point p2 = GUIUtilities.getMidPoint(p1,theDialog);
          theDialog.setLocation(p2);          
          theDialog.show();
     public void stop() {
          theDialog.dispose();
     public static void main(String[] args) {
          JFrame frame = new JFrame("Test ProgressAnimationDialog");
          frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
          frame.setSize(600,400);
          frame.setVisible(true);
          ProgressAnimationDialog pad =
               new ProgressAnimationDialog(frame,"Please Wait","Loading Region",true);
          pad.start();
          try {
               Thread.sleep(5000);
          } catch (InterruptedException e) {
               e.printStackTrace();
          pad.stop();
}

Answer 1

Hi Michelle!
I tried out your code: besides the GUIUtilities class, whose reference I commented out, the program ran perfectly. I got a JProgressBar, with the text in the middle, and the indeterminate bar floating across...
What version of Java are you using?
regards,
lutha