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Dynamically updating JTextArea

 
Greenhorn
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Im really stuck!

My program currently updates a JtextArea dynamically with the append method by
starting a new thread. The code is shown below...



I would like my program(the main thread) to wait in this procedure until the new thread(that updates the GUI) has finished. If i use the join() method
the jtextarea updates but not dynamically, it waits until the proc panelTextArea.setOutputText(text) has finished processing before updating.

Is there a way to have the program wait without using something like the following(its really slow)...




anyone know?

thanks
 
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Concurrency in Swing. In short, if your t.join() is executed in the Event Dispatching Thread (EDT) then that will block all other GUI related actions - mouse clicks, keyboard presses, repainting, etc. Any code that either can block or will take a long time should be executed in a different thread, possibly by using SwingWorker.
 
kevin allen
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So there is no way to wait in the procedure while executing the EDT thread?

im confused because the loop solution i suggested does work albiet slowly, so is there no way of waiting here while still dealing with the EDT stuff?

a way of waiting without using t.join()?

 
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kevin allen wrote:So there is no way to wait in the procedure while executing the EDT thread?


Kevin, you posted this 7 minutes after Rob Prime posted a link to a tutorial which very likely answers that question. You will not have been able to read and understand that whole tutorial in under 7 minutes. Read it. Please.
 
kevin allen
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Ok fair enough, I solved the problem by changing the way the program is structured...

but to be fair to me this tutorial still does not answer the question of how to pause a thread in effectively the same way as my suggested loop without the overheads. However I appreciate the sort of help provided here so many thanks to people who spend there time helping persons such as myself kindness prevails.

thanks

kevin
 
Rob Spoor
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Since you don't want to stop the GUI from repainting, you will want to disable all your GUI input controls:
- disable all input controls
- start the new thread that will do the hard work
- when that thread has finished let it re-enable all controls again

In semi-pseudo code:
Usually the "update text field" is done using publish and process:
Note that JTextArea.append is special; it is already thread safe so the publish-process pair is not needed for it. For just about any other GUI updating code you should use the pair.


Note the use of Void in my pseudo code. Void is a special class that represents "nothing", and because it can never be instantiated at all it has only one valid value: null. I chose it because doInBackground doesn't need to return anything.
 
kevin allen
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again i extend gratitude towards endeavours to my answer my question, truly grateful and i hope you feel good as a result etc..

however this again technically doesnt answer my question..

what i asked for was a way of pausing the EDT thread whilst still doing EDT stuff providing the functionaility of a while(threadrunning) {} without
the massive performance issue..

kevin
 
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kevin allen wrote:again i extend gratitude towards endeavours to my answer my question, truly grateful and i hope you feel good as a result etc..
however this again technically doesnt answer my question..
what i asked for was a way of pausing the EDT thread whilst still doing EDT stuff providing the functionaility of a while(threadrunning) {} without
the massive performance issue..
kevin


And you've been given the answer: you don't want to pause the EDT. And I agree with this as I've yet to see anything yet that would suggest why you would need to do this -- nor would your users. A paused EDT means a frozen completely useless app. If another app goes over it, it will not repaint itself, if the user wants to move the scrollbars to see a portion of your JTextArea, the app won't respond. Your solution (as has already been given) is to disable your components and then from the SwingWorker, re-enable them when the process is done.

Here's a small example of disabling components vs. freezing the API. Run it and let me know which you think is a better solution:
 
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