Optimizing painting of a JFrame with a large number of components in Java

Question

So I have the following problem. I create a JInternalFrame with a VERY LARGE NUMBER of components (lets say 50 000 of text areas). First I do all the logic ( capture all the data which is displayed in the text areas ) and after I set the frame visible, what makes the program freeze ( I suppose it paints all the components).

What would be the best way to optimize the painting ? I guess I should use separate threads so the program wont freeze, but what would be the best approach ? Should I set the frame visible first and then do the login in a thread or should I do all the login and then paint it in a thread ( if so how to paint child components apart from the parent ), or maybe something else ?

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Swing components may not be used outside of the EDT. So adding threads is not an option. The obvious option is not to have as many components. A UI with 50,000 text areas is unusable. Redesign the UI.

Answer 2

One problem is the layouting on calling pack() . The appropiate LayoutManager and set(Preffered|Minimum|Maximum)Size will help.

It seems you are doing a kind of spread sheet , inside a JScrollPane. In that case a JTable might help, with a virtual model, with text areas on mouse hoover. (A JTable reuses the same component for different cells.)