Waiting for a mouse click in a single thread

Question

Here's my problem:
I'm working on a program I didn't initially create, and I picked it up from the rough midpoint of its evolution. It is a single thread AWT program, with a mouseListener interface already implemented.
Here's my problem. In a game setting, we have two players. It is no problem when both are computer controlled. When player one is controlled by a human, I need to wait for a mouse event before returning, because upon returning player two moves (regardless of its player configuration).
I can't do any kind of busy waiting because it is a single thread. I'm looking for some kind of option besides making the program multithreaded. This also makes it difficult to use some sort of boolean variable, though I don't think it's impossible.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Eric

Answer 1

#9 - You are correct in your assumptions. I agree it's
not the best model, but it worked for the original
purpose, which was to have one player always
controlled by the computer, and the option of
selecting a second player as being either human or
computer. Since each move is made manually - that is,
for a move to be made, it requires user input - there
was no harm in returning from a function, because it
had no immediate computation. The requirements have
just changed, and now I must allow both players to be
selectable. This presents a problem in that I have to
wait for the move actions to finish before
proceeding.Understood.
>
My only question is, how can I access the AWT thread?You mentioned in an earlier post that you have action listeners. As triggered by user events, these are always called on the AWT thread. For example:
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.awt.event.*;
JButton button = new JButton( new AbstractAction {
        public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
            synchronized (myMonitor) {
                myMonitor.notifyAll();
    });This button can be added to some swing UI. If clicked on, then actionPerformed will be called on the AWT thread, and any threads waiting on myMonitor will be notified.
I see what you are saying - it's almost exactly what
my coworkers told me - but I don't have the knowledge
to implement it, which is why I'm here. Creating a
monitor object isn't a problem (makeMove() would need
to be synchronized, otherwise you wouldn't be able to
call wait()),I recommend using a separate object for the monitor, especially if you are already using synchronized, so that you know exactly how each object's lock is being used. If you're sure it is safe, then there is nothing wrong with using the object itself as the monitor, as you suggest, however.
but I'm not sure what you mean by the
action handling method should be called on the AWT
thread.Just that any action listener method is always called on the AWT thread in response to user action.
Dave