Thread.Sleep() is freezing

Question

Here is a snippet

kit.insertHTML(doc, doc.getLength(), "Hello", 0, 0, null);
try{
Thread.sleep(1000);
}catch(Exception e){}

I am using HTMLEditorKit() and HTMLDocument() as a textbox. The textbox should show "Hello" then wait one second however, when I try this, It waits one second then puts the word "Hello" which is not what I want.

I am not sure why this happens because I put this in the logical order. If anyone can help me with this, that would be great.

EDIT:

Does anyone know an alternative, so I can use the "delay" sort of effect?

Answer 1

Don't ever call Thread.sleep(...) from within the Swing event thread as this will put the event thread itself to sleep. Since this thread is responsible for all Swing painting and user interaction, this will put your application to sleep.

If all you want is a delay in the display, then consider use of a Swing Timer.

If on the other hand your event thread is being compromised by a long-running task, then do the task in the background, using a SwingWorker (as suggested by Guillaume 1+ to him).