Java "Fire and Forget" Thread

Question

I have a method

public static void startAnimation() {
    new AnimationThread().run();
}

where AnimationThread implements runnable and its constructor is:

public AnimationThread() {
    new Thread(this, "Animation Thread");
    EventQueue.setAnimationCounter(0);
    alive = true;
}

which i am calling from the init() method of an applet hangs as it never returns a value. Is there a way to start this thread and get the init() method to finish so that my applet will start!

Thanks

Answer 1

You need to move things around a bit:

public AnimationThread() {
   EventQueue.setAnimationCounter(0);
   alive = true;
   new Thread(this, "Animation Thread").start();
}

public static void startAnimation() {
   new AnimationThread();
}

start() is the magic Thread method that runs code on a different thread; the AnimationThread constructor will return normally after calling it, the AnimationThread.run() will execute in a new thread.