Thread: Funny business with JFrame, JPanel and JLabel

All, I'm having some funny business creating instances of a Swing GUI app.

My objective is to provide my user with a message while a process is busy doing some work. The controlling program is a created instance of a class ( Call it class1 ). This instance creates an instance of another class ( class2 ) where the constructor takes some time to do its work. While that constructor is busy, I want a message like "Listing contents of directory . . . . ", where the dots are slowly added as time goes by to show the user there is no lockup.

In class1 I create a frame, panel and label. I add label to panel to frame. I pass the label to a threaded instance of a method that adds the message text to the label and slowly adds the dots. While that thread is running I instantiate class2, unthreaded. When that is finished, I interrupt the messaging thread and all is well.

It works for the first instance of class 1. When I create a second instance of class1, the label does not show.

I assume there is something fundamental that I am missing here. It does exactly what I want for the first instance of class1, but in following instances it does not show the label.

The threaded method does run because I can see it in the standard output. It's just as if the label isn't there.

NOW: My first instance of class1 is created by the static main method. When I create multiple instances of class 1 in the main method, it works. So I created another method in the main class, static, to start another instance of class 1. It fails as well.

I'm sure someone knowledgeable can point me in the right direction.

I reduced my code to the bare minimum to illustrate the problem. SHould run fine.


Thanks all,
Jeff C. New user.

public class main {
 
 
	public static void main (String[] args) { new FunnyJFrameBusiness(); }
 
	public static void startAnother() { new FunnyJFrameBusiness(); }
 
}
 
 
 
import java.lang.Thread;
 
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.awt.FlowLayout;
import java.awt.Dimension;
 
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.WindowConstants;
 
 
public class FunnyJFrameBusiness {
 
	public Init init;
	public JFrame j;
	public JPanel framePanel;
	public JLabel tempLabel;
 
	public ClickHandler click = new ClickHandler();
 
 
 
// CONSTRUCTOR	****************************************************************
	public FunnyJFrameBusiness( ) {
 
 
	// Frame prep:
		j = new JFrame("FunnyBizTest");
 		j.setDefaultCloseOperation(WindowConstants.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
		j.setLocation(100, 100);		
		j.setSize(500,100);
 
		framePanel = new JPanel(new FlowLayout());
		j.setContentPane(framePanel);
 
		tempLabel = new JLabel();
		framePanel.add(tempLabel);
 
		j.setVisible(true);
 
 
		Thread delayMsg = new Thread(new delayMessage( tempLabel, "   Waiting for initializer " ));
		delayMsg.start();
 
		init = new Init();
 
		delayMsg.interrupt();
		framePanel.remove(tempLabel);
		framePanel.repaint();
 
		JButton buttonClone = new JButton("Clone");
		buttonClone.setSize(new Dimension(10,10));
		buttonClone.addActionListener(click);
		framePanel.add(buttonClone);
 
		j.setVisible(true);
 
	} // END FunnyBiz CONSTRUCTOR
 
 
 
 
// CLICKHANDLER ****************************************************************
	public class ClickHandler implements ActionListener {
 
		public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
 
			if ( e.getActionCommand().equals("Clone") ) {
				main.startAnother();
			}			
		}  // END action performed method
	}  // END of ClickHandler class
 
 
 
 
 
 
	public class delayMessage implements Runnable {
 
 
		public JLabel label;
		public String msg, s1;
		public long sleepTime = 250;
 
		public delayMessage( JLabel l, String s) { label = l; msg = s; }
 
		public void run() {	
 
			System.out.println("In Threaded Labeler: ");
 
			try {
				while ( true ) {
					s1 = msg;
 
					for (  int i = 1; i <= 7; i++ ) {
						label.setText(s1);
						System.out.println(s1);
 
						Thread.sleep(sleepTime);
 
						s1 = s1+" .";
					}
				}
			}
			catch ( InterruptedException e ) { 
				System.out.println("EXCEPTION: "+e);
				System.out.println("Exiting threaded labeler");
			} 
		}// END run()				
	}// END runnable class
 
 
 
	public class Init {
 
	// Simply waits two seconds to emulate an initialization.		
		public Init() {
			try { Thread.sleep(2000); } 
			catch (InterruptedException e) { System.out.println("Initialized");	}
 
		}	// END Init constructor
	}  // END init class
}// END FunnyJFrameBusiness class