Repaint() not being called

Question

Recently I've been working on a program that paints an area with empty, colored squares. Their locations on the screen are based off of the values 1 and 2 in a text file. 1s are supposed to make red boxes, and 2s are supposed to make green boxes. However, when I run the program, only red boxes are painted. I did some testing and found out that the repaint method is only being called twice(once sometimes for some reason), even though there are close to 300 values in the file, and repaint() should be called once for every value. Here is my code:

public class MAP extends JFrame {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        MAP map = new MAP();
    }

    Shape shape;
    int x = -32;
    int y = 0;
    ArrayList<Shape> shapes = new ArrayList<Shape>();
    Graphics2D g2;
    Color coulor = null;

    private class PaintSurface extends JComponent {

        public PaintSurface() {
        }

        public void paint(Graphics g) {
            g2 = (Graphics2D) g;
            g2.setColor(coulor);
            for (Shape s : shapes) {
                g2.draw(s);
            }

        }
    }

    public MAP() throws FileNotFoundException, IOException {
        JFrame frame = new JFrame();
        JPanel panel = new JPanel();
        frame.add(panel);
        frame.setTitle("Grid Maker");
        frame.setSize(400, 200);
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        frame.add(new PaintSurface(), BorderLayout.CENTER);
        frame.setVisible(true);

        readNextLine();
    }

    private void readNextLine() throws IOException {
        File file = new File("map.txt");
        BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(file));
        String line = in.readLine();

        while (line != null) {
            for (int i = 0; i < line.length(); i++) {
                char c = line.charAt(i);
                if (c == '1') {
                    coulor = Color.RED;
                    x += 32;
                    int smallX = x / 32;
                    int smallY = y / 32;
                    shape = new Rectangle2D.Float(x, y, 32, 32);
                    shapes.add(shape);
                    repaint();
                } else if (c == '2') {
                    coulor = Color.GREEN;
                    x += 32;
                    int smallX = x / 32;
                    int smallY = y / 32;
                    shape = new Rectangle2D.Float(x, y, 32, 32);
                    shapes.add(shape);
                    repaint();

                }
            }

            line = in.readLine();
            x = -32;
            y += 32;
        }
    }
}

Why isn't this code working properly?

Answer 1

Painting is transient, or stateless.

repaint is a "request" made to the repaint manager to tell it that it should, at some time in the future, when it's ready, it should paint some portion of the screen, that it deems to be dirty.

This means that when you call g2.setColor(coulor) in you paint method, it is using the LAST value that it was set to (when paint is called)....which is probably RED .

Raufio is right, you should be providing color information along with the shapes. Personally, I would set up a second List which just contained Color objects, where each index of the Shape list corresponded directly to the Color in the Color List .

Check out Painting in AWT and Swing for more details on how painting in works in Swing.

Now, to the whiny part ;)

It is not recommended to override paint . There are lots of reasons for this, paint is responsible for calling a number of important methods, including paintChildren and paintComponent , which perform very important tasks.

Instead, you should override paintComponent (and make sure you call super.paintComponent )

Check out Performing Custom Painting for more details.

Update with rough example

So this is a rough example of what I'm talking about...

public class TestPainting {

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

    public TestPainting() {
        EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                try {
                    UIManager.setLookAndFeel(UIManager.getSystemLookAndFeelClassName());
                } catch (Exception ex) {
                }

                JFrame frame = new JFrame("Test");
                frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
                frame.add(new PaintingPane());
                frame.pack();
                frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
                frame.setVisible(true);
            }
        });
    }

    public class PaintingPane extends JPanel {

        private static final int WIDTH = 200;
        private static final int HEIGHT = 200;

        private List<Shape> shapes;
        private List<Color> colors;

        public PaintingPane() {
            shapes = new ArrayList<>(25);
            colors = new ArrayList<>(25);

            for (int index = 0; index < (int) Math.round(Math.random() * 100); index++) {

                int x = (int) Math.round(Math.random() * (WIDTH * 0.75f));
                int y = (int) Math.round(Math.random() * (HEIGHT * 0.75f));
                int width = (int) Math.round(Math.random() * (WIDTH * 0.25f));
                int height = (int) Math.round(Math.random() * (HEIGHT * 0.25f));

                if (width < 5) {
                    width = 5;
                }
                if (height < 5) {
                    height = 5;
                }

                if (x + width > WIDTH) {
                    x -= width - WIDTH;
                }
                if (y + height > HEIGHT) {
                    y -= height - HEIGHT;
                }
                if (x < 0) {
                    x = 0;
                }
                if (y < 0) {
                    y = 0;
                }

                Color color = ((int)Math.round(Math.random() * 2)) == 1 ? Color.RED : Color.GREEN;

                shapes.add(new Rectangle(x, y, width, height));
                colors.add(color);
            }
        }

        @Override
        public Dimension getPreferredSize() {
            return new Dimension(WIDTH, HEIGHT);
        }

        @Override
        protected void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
            super.paintComponent(g);
            Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D) g.create();
            for (int index = 0; index < shapes.size(); index++) {
                g2d.setColor(colors.get(index));
                g2d.draw(shapes.get(index));
            }
            g2d.dispose();

        }
    }
}

Answer 2

Just to add to other answers, here is a piece of code (based on yours) which looks already a lot better (yet there are still some issues, but you are not there yet):

import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.Graphics2D;
import java.awt.Shape;
import java.awt.geom.Rectangle2D;
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.StringReader;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

import javax.swing.JComponent;
import javax.swing.JFrame;

public class MAP extends JFrame {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        MAP map = new MAP();
    }

    public static class ColoredShape {
        private Shape shape;
        private Color color;

        public ColoredShape(Shape shape, Color color) {
            super();
            this.shape = shape;
            this.color = color;
        }

        public Shape getShape() {
            return shape;
        }

        public Color getColor() {
            return color;
        }
    }

    int x = -32;
    int y = 0;
    List<ColoredShape> shapes = new ArrayList<ColoredShape>();
    Graphics2D g2;

    private class PaintSurface extends JComponent {

        public PaintSurface() {
        }

        @Override
        protected void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
            super.paintComponent(g);
            g2 = (Graphics2D) g;
            for (ColoredShape s : shapes) {
                g2.setColor(s.getColor());
                g2.draw(s.getShape());
            }

        }
    }

    public MAP() throws FileNotFoundException, IOException {
        JFrame frame = new JFrame();
        frame.setTitle("Grid Maker");
        frame.setSize(400, 400);
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        frame.add(new PaintSurface(), BorderLayout.CENTER);
        frame.setVisible(true);

        readNextLine();
    }

    private void readNextLine() throws IOException {
        BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new StringReader("11121\n1221\n2212\n221121\n111221\n11221\n222\n2222\n"));
        String line = in.readLine();

        while (line != null) {
            for (int i = 0; i < line.length(); i++) {
                char c = line.charAt(i);
                Color color = null;
                if (c == '1') {
                    color = Color.RED;
                } else if (c == '2') {
                    color = Color.GREEN;
                }
                if (color != null) {
                    shapes.add(new ColoredShape(new Rectangle2D.Float(x, y, 32, 32), color));
                    x += 32;
                    repaint();
                }
            }

            line = in.readLine();
            x = -32;
            y += 32;
        }
    }
}

Answer 3

The first thing I see is that you are only coloring shapes one color at a time. So here:

public void paint(Graphics g) {
    g2 = (Graphics2D) g;
    g2.setColor(coulor);        //set the drawing color
    for (Shape s : shapes) {
         g2.draw(s);            //draw in that color
    }
}

All your shapes are being drawn in the same color, when you want to color them differently. I think a better way to do things is to add all your shapes into your list, keeping track of their color, and calling repaint() once. Also, I would change the paint method to something to the effect of:

public void paint(Graphics g) {
    g2 = (Graphics2D) g;
    for (Shape s : shapes) {
         g2.setColor(coulor[indexOfShape]);   //set the drawing color
         g2.draw(s);            //draw in that color
    }
}

Also, for repaint only being called twice: It is probably throwing an IOException . Try using a try {...} catch(IOException e) {...} block instead of just throwing it up the line. Something like:

private void readNextLine() {
    try {
       File file = new File("map.txt");
       BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(file));
       String line = in.readLine();
       ...
       ...
    } catch (IOException e) {
       e.printStackTrace();
    }
}

It should complain about something if it isn't reading right.