Yes, this is homework. Yes, I am completely stuck.
Here is the gist. I have created a JFrame. There are 3 panels (top, middle, bottom). In the bottom panel are 3 buttons called: Red, Green, and Blue. In the top Panel are 3 text fields that give us the number of times we have clicked the respective button. The max we are allowed is 10 for each button. In the middle Panel is an 8 x 8 grid of Jbuttons numbered from 0 to 63. So far, so good.
Every time we click a button, a thread starts. No thread ever dies When a thread starts, a number from 0 to 63 is randomly chosen. The JButton corresponding to that number is painted the color that was clicked on. So if the red button was clicked, we should see a box with a white background turn red. But then the color of that JButton starts to fade until it becomes white. The process should take about 8 seconds.
Threads that you create should not have access to any Swing components. Rather, one has to maintain a data structure and update by threads according to their cycle of execution. On the other hand, periodically invoke repaint() methods from main thread to invite Swing Event Dispatcher thread to eventually visit the content of the data structure and display the GUI components accordingly.
........ I have gotten all the objects created and displayed. You can't click more than 10 times on a button. Here is where I am:
I have two arrays: one is an array of strings with size 64. They represent the buttons. I also have an array of ints. This is so that I know the order by which the threads were created. I have created the threads as a button is clicked, and I have started them. Here is my run method for the threads:
public void run() {
Random num = new Random(new Date().getTime());
while (true) {
Thread j = Thread.currentThread();
int randInt = num.nextInt(64);
synchronized (lock) {
if ((array[randInt].compareTo("red") == 0
|| array[randInt].compareTo("blue")
== 0 || array[randInt].compareTo("green") == 0))
{
randInt = num.nextInt(64);
}
for (int k = 0; k < 10; k++) {
if (threadarray[k] == -1) {
threadarray[k] = randInt;
break;
}
}
}
}
}
Even though we haven't covered it, I have tried to use a Timer object that immediately goes off right outside of the lock section. This takes me to the actionPerformed method. I have added all the appropriate registration.
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent arg0) {
for (int i = 0; i < threadarray.length; i++) {
int num = threadarray[i];
if (num != -1) {
System.out.println(num);
String s = array[num];
System.out.println(s + "is ");
if (s.compareTo("red") == 0) {
button[num].setOpaque(true);
button[num].setBackground(Color.red);
while (button[num].getBackground() != Color.white) {
System.out.println("not white yet");
int g = button[num].getBackground().getGreen();
int b = button[num].getBackground().getBlue();
if (255 - (g + 1) >= 0) {
Color c = new Color(255, g + 1, b + 1, 1);
button[num].setOpaque(true);
button[num].setBackground(c);
System.out.println(c + " " + " c is");
} else {
button[num].setBackground(Color.white);
}
}
}
System.out.println(i + " i is " + button[num].getBackground()); //just some debugging info
threadarray[i] = -1; //clear the thread array
array[num] = "0"; //clear the string array
}
}
}
The actionPerformed method is handled by the Event Dispatch Thread. (Note the code immediately above is for the red threads only. The idea is to fade the color by inclemently increasing the green and blue colors till it becomes white.
Problems: no button ever changes color when I click the red button on bottom (yes, appropriate registration has been done.) I also have no idea how to control the timing with a multitude of threads going. Am I even going down the right road here?
