Question

I have the following code that runs whenever you click the Start button on my program. I have denoted via comments where I want the timer to go, problem is, when I do thread.sleep(time) it freezes my program! So, I was wondering if someoen could just simply add atimer to my code so it runs the first bit, waits, then runs it again based on bumpNum.

Code:

public class startReplyButtonListener implements ActionListener{


        public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ev){

            int length = textAreaReplyMessage.getText().length();
            int remLen = 400 - length;

            String strHTML = neo.get("http://www.neopets.com/neoboards/topic.phtml?topic=" + txtTopicID.getText());
            /*strHTML = neo.post("/neoboards/process_topic.phtml?", new String[][] {{"boardType", "topic_id", "board_id", "message", "next", "remLen"}, {"reply", txtTopicID.getText(), "4", textAreaReplyMessage.getText() , "1", ((Integer)remLen).toString()}});

            if(strHTML.contains("No topic with ID")){
                txtLog.append("Invalid Topic ID! \n");
            }
            else{
                txtLog.append("Bumped Topic ID " + txtTopicID.getText() + "\n");
            }
            */
            System.out.println(strHTML);
            bumpNum = 5;
            wait = Integer.parseInt(textWait1.getText()) * 1000; //converting to miliseconds

            int i=1;
            do{
                strHTML = neo.post("/neoboards/process_topic.phtml?", new String[][] {{"boardType", "topic_id", "board_id", "message", "next", "remLen"}, {"reply", txtTopicID.getText(), "4", textAreaReplyMessage.getText() , "1", ((Integer)remLen).toString()}});

                txtLog.append("Board Bumped. Waiting "+ ((Integer)(wait/1000)).toString() +" Seconds..." + "\n");

                //ADD TIMER HERE
                i++;



            }while(i <= bumpNum);

        }

        }

What I wish to accomplish:

User indicates how many times they want to “post”(indicated by bumpNum), the loop will first, post once:

strHTML = neo.post("/neoboards/process_topic.phtml?", new String[][] {{"boardType", "topic_id", "board_id", "message", "next", "remLen"}, {"reply", txtTopicID.getText(), "4", textAreaReplyMessage.getText() , "1", ((Integer)remLen).toString()}});

Then:
Based on users input, it will wait for however many seconds(txtWait1) and THEN repeat the posting code above until it has reached bumpNum.

And it will update txtLog with the following EACH TIME it bumps(so the program cannot be frozen):

txtLog.append("Board Bumped. Waiting "+ ((Integer)(wait/1000)).toString() +" Seconds..." + "\n");

Answer 1

Edit:

Sigh. Ok, now I understand. I don’t know the answer. You are talking about drawing a GUI element. I suspect you want to fork a thread to do a job and then show the GUI display that you are waiting for it. You need to wait for the thread to finish (see my join code below) all of the time having the GUI element refresh UNTIL it finishes when you display some result.

This depends more on the GUI code than sleep/timer. I would start a new question now and explain !!!NOT WITH CODE!!! but with pseudo code from 1000 foot view what you want. Something like:

I am trying to fork a thread that runs in the background in [Swing/Android/etc]. I want to display to the user that the thread has been forked, I want the user interface to wait for the thread without freezing, and then I want the user interface to join with the thread and display the results.

Think about the problem like we have to think of it. Anticipate questions that we will ask. Figure out what we don’t and can’t know about your environment.

Best of luck.

Edit:

If you are just trying to call sleep then you don’t need to fork a thread for that. All you need to do in your code is:

  try {
      Thread.sleep(waitingTime);
      System.out.println(waitingTime);
  } catch (InterruptedException e) {
      Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
      e.printStackTrace();
  }

This will pause the current thread (which could be the main thread) for waitingTime milliseconds.

---

So you are forking 3 threads very quickly which I guess you don’t want to do. If you are trying to wait for each thread to finish then you will have to do something like:

 Thread thread = new Thread(new Counter(wait));
 thread.start();
 thread.join();

Couple of other comments:

• It is considered bad form to start a thread in the constructor of a class: new Thread(this).start();

• You are creating 2 thread objects inside of your Runnable. You should just create one outside of your Runnable. See above.

  Thread myCounter = new Thread(this);  << #1
  public Counter(int waitingTime) {
     new Thread(this).start();          << #2
  }
  

• I would not initialize waitingTime = 0; when defined and initialize it in the constructor. This is confusing. Remove the = 0.

      int waitingTime;                    << remove the =0 here
      public Counter(int waitingTime) {
         this.waitingTime = waitingTime;
  

• When you catch InterruptedException, be sure to handle it right. A good pattern is to reset the interrupt flag and/or quit the thread:

  } catch (InterruptedException e) {
      // resets the interrupt flag cleared by catching the exception
      Thread.currentThread.interrupt();
      // or stops the thread immediately
      return;
  }