Question

I’m trying to move an object on the click of a mouse while the object remains animated. There are a few similar posts on this website, and I’ve based my code off this answer:

An efficient algorithm to move ostrichs along a line at a constant speed

But I want to use a thread to keep the object animated. How should I do this? Here’s my code:

public void movePlayer(Graphics g, int finalX, int finalY)
{
    int length = finalX - xpos;
    int height = finalY - ypos;

    int oldXpos = xpos;
    int oldYpos = ypos;

    double speed = 20;
    double distanceX = (length)/speed;
    double distanceY = (height)/speed;

    double distance = (Math.hypot(length,height));
    double distanceTraveled = 0;

    //This currently doesn't work:
    move = new Thread(this);
    {
        while (distanceTraveled<distance)
        {
            //move the object by increments
            xpos += distanceX;
            ypos += distanceY;
            distanceTraveled = Math.hypot(xpos-oldXpos, ypos - oldYpos);
            drawPlayer(img, g);
            for(int x = 0; x < 100000; x ++);

        }
    }
}

Answer 1

If this is Swing, why not simply use a MouseListener to help you drag the object? If you want to animate separate from the mouse, don’t use a while(true) loop unless you want to freeze the event thread. Use a Swing Timer instead. If this isn’t Swing, tell us more details (shoot, do this anyway)!