Why is my button not clickable? (Java)

Question

I have a java swing gui program and when I click a toggle button a timer begins but I want to be able to click the same button and the timer stops and right now it won't let me click on it again. This is in my timer class

 public void runningClock(){
      isPaused = false;
      while(!isPaused){
      incrementTime();
      System.out.println("Timer Current Time " + getTime());
      time.setText(""+ getTime());  
      try{Thread.sleep(1000);} catch(Exception e){}
      }
  }


public void pausedClock(){
        isPaused=true;
        System.out.println("Timer Current Time " + getTime());
        time.setText(""+ getTime());
        try{Thread.sleep(1000);} catch(Exception e){}
   }

and this is in my main class

private void btnRunActionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt) {                                       

    if(btnRun.getText().equals("Run")){
          System.out.println("Run Button Clicked");
          btnRun.setText("Pause");
          test.runningClock();
    }
    else if(btnRun.getText().equals("Pause")){
        System.out.println("Pause Button Clicked");
        btnRun.setText("Run");
        test.pausedClock();

    }
}

Take a look at [Concurrency in Swing](http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/concurrency/) for the cause of the problem and [How to use Swing Timers](http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/misc/timer.html) for a away to fix it (as has already been mentioned) — MadProgrammer, Sep 01 '14 at 23:36

score 5 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:12

5

You're freezing the Swing event thread with your Thread.sleep(...) and while (something) loops. Solution: don't do that -- don't call code on the event thread that occupies the event thread and prevents it from doing its necessary tasks. Instead change the state of your program. And for your clock, use a Swing Timer. For example, please look at my answer and code here.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:12

Community

1
1

answered Sep 01 '14 at 22:57

Hovercraft Full Of Eels

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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 02 '14 at 03:35

You are doing this in your program, try{Thread.sleep(1000);} catch(Exception e){}. As this statement is applied on the main thread itself, so the application itself hangs or you can say freezes. What you can do is apply a separate thread for the timer.

 new Thread(new Runnable(){
         public void run(){
              //Do Stuff
         }
 }).start();

Why is my button not clickable? (Java)

2 Answers2