How to delay an answer while not freezing the thread?

Question

Simple question. Thread.sleep(x) freezes the entire code so even Buttons stay the way they are (pressed unpressed whatever)

I want to basicially click a button, "wait" for the computer to do it's thing for x amount of time and then output something.

public class bsp extends JFrame {
DrawPanel drawPanel = new DrawPanel();

public bsp() {
    setSize(600,600);
    JButton Hit = new JButton("Hit him");
    Hit.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
        public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
            try {
                Thread.sleep(1500);
            } catch (InterruptedException e1) {
                // TODO Auto-generated catch block
                e1.printStackTrace();
            }
            System.out.println("I hit you back!");
            
        }
    });
    Hit.setSize(80, 30);
    Hit.setLocation(200, 400);
    add(Hit);
    setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
    add(drawPanel);
    setVisible(true);

}

private static class DrawPanel extends JPanel {

    protected void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
        
    }
}

public static void main(String[] args) {
    new bsp();

}

}

As you can see, the button "stays" pressed and the whole program is frozen. But I basicially want to simulate the "A.I." thinking before answering, without freezing everything.

Answer 1

Consider using a Timer to prevent main thread from freezing :

import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.event.*;

        ActionListener task = new ActionListener() {
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent evt) {
             
            }
        };
        Timer countdown = new Timer(1000 ,task);
        countdown.setRepeats(false);
        countdown.start();

where 1000 is the delay time in milliseconds and inside the actionPerformed function is where your code executes after the delay time set.