Swing timers

Question

Currently having difficultly with swing timers and getting it to update it's delay
We have a GUI app that will display screens for differing amounts of time, each screen has it's own time limit. The timer times out at 4000 for each screen( timerArray[0] );
//I create the timer
delay = timerArray[0];
timer = new Timer( delay, this );
//start the timer in the start buttons action performed.
timer.start();
//reset the timer in an inner class that repaints the JPanel
delay = timerArray[currentScreen];
timer.setDelay(delay);
// stop and reset the screen in actionPerformed for main window
System.out.println( currentScreen+" "+timer.getDelay() );
contentPane.add( new splashScreen() );
timer.stop();
And the print out is
1 4000
2 20000
3 60000
4 15000
So why is it not changing it's time?

Answer 1

Are you sure you have understand that the Timer works like this :
<---initialDelay--->fire ActionEvent<---delay--->fire ActionEvent<---delay--->fire Action Event<--- ...
while it is not stopped.
for example if you want the Timer to count 4 seconds you set the initial delay to 1000 (millis) and the delay to 1000 also.
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class SplashScreen extends JWindow {
     int duration = 0;
     int counter = 0;
     javax.swing.Timer timer;
     public SplashScreen() { 
          ImageIcon bg = new ImageIcon("image1.jpg");
          getContentPane().add(new JLabel(bg));
          pack();
          Dimension screenSize = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize();
          setLocation(screenSize.width/2 - getWidth()/2,
                          screenSize.height/2 - getHeight()/2);
          timer = new javax.swing.Timer(1000, new ActionListener() {
               public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
                    counter++;
                    if (counter>=duration) {
                         closeSplashScreen();
     public void showSplashScreen(int seconds) {
          duration = seconds;
          counter = 0;
          setVisible(true);
          timer.start();
     public void closeSplashScreen() {
          if (timer.isRunning()) {
               timer.stop();
          setVisible(false);
     public static void main(String[] args) {
          SplashScreen sp = new SplashScreen();
          sp.showSplashScreen(4);
}------ unformatted version ----
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class SplashScreen extends JWindow {
     int duration = 0;
     int counter = 0;
     javax.swing.Timer timer;
public SplashScreen() { 
          ImageIcon bg = new ImageIcon("image1.jpg");
          getContentPane().add(new JLabel(bg));
          pack();
          Dimension screenSize = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize();
          setLocation(screenSize.width/2 - getWidth()/2,
                         screenSize.height/2 - getHeight()/2);
          timer = new javax.swing.Timer(1000, new ActionListener() {
               public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
                    counter++;
                    if (counter>=duration) {
                         closeSplashScreen();
     public void showSplashScreen(int seconds) {
          duration = seconds;
          counter = 0;
          setVisible(true);
          timer.start();
     public void closeSplashScreen() {
          if (timer.isRunning()) {
               timer.stop();
          setVisible(false);
     public static void main(String[] args) {
          SplashScreen sp = new SplashScreen();
          sp.showSplashScreen(4);
Hope this helps,
Denis