[kepler-dev] Found simple fix was Re: Splash screen and corresponding changes

[Kevin Ruland]

Christopher,

After pulling things apart, looking at the thread allocation, the
putting everything back together, I found a very simple fix to the
problems I've been seeing.  Basically, in VergilApplicaiton.main()
instead of using SwingUtilities.invokeLater() to run
VergilApplication(args), use a SwingWorker thread.  I don't really
understand the subtle between these two different mechanisms (since
SwingWorker uses invokeLater), but indications are good that the splash
appears, is refreshed, and continues to receive mouse events even while
Kepler is doing all it's work.

BTW - what I saw when I removed the invokeLater() from main and put
invokeLater in _createEmptyConfiguration was the EventThread stopping
and restarting quite frequently.  I think it was restarting whenever one
of the actors was constructed - perhaps to render icons or something.  I
don't really know.  Although that code change seemed to work too, I
didn't really like the frequent thread startup/shutdown.

Here's the diff.

$ diff -wc ../ptII/ptolemy/vergil/VergilApplication.java
src/exp/ptolemy/vergil/VergilApplication.java
*** ../ptII/ptolemy/vergil/VergilApplication.java       Mon Feb 13
08:57:11 2006
--- src/exp/ptolemy/vergil/VergilApplication.java       Tue Feb 14
09:39:49 2006
***************
*** 34,41 ****
  import java.util.LinkedList;
  import java.util.List;
 
- import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;
-
  import ptolemy.actor.gui.Configuration;
  import ptolemy.actor.gui.Effigy;
  import ptolemy.actor.gui.JNLPUtilities;
--- 34,39 ----
***************
*** 45,50 ****
--- 43,49 ----
  import ptolemy.actor.gui.PtolemyPreferences;
  import ptolemy.data.expr.Parameter;
  import ptolemy.gui.GraphicalMessageHandler;
+ import ptolemy.gui.SwingWorker;
  import ptolemy.kernel.CompositeEntity;
  import ptolemy.kernel.attributes.URIAttribute;
  import ptolemy.kernel.util.ChangeRequest;
***************
*** 139,161 ****
          // weird things happens at the user interface level.  This
          // seems to prevent occasional errors rending HTML under Web
Start.
          try {
!             // NOTE: This is unfortunate... It would be nice
!             // if this could be run inside a PtolemyThread, since
!             // getting read access the workspace is much more efficient
!             // in PtolemyThread.
!             SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
!                 public void run() {
                      try {
!                         new VergilApplication(args);
                      } catch (Throwable throwable) {
                          System.err.println("xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx");
 
                          // If we get an Error or and Exception while
                          // configuring, we will end up here.
                          _errorAndExit("Command failed", args, throwable);
                      }
                  }
!             });
          } catch (Throwable throwable2) {
              // We are not likely to get here, but just to be safe
              // we try to print the error message and display it in a
--- 138,158 ----
          // weird things happens at the user interface level.  This
          // seems to prevent occasional errors rending HTML under Web
Start.
          try {
!             SwingWorker w = new SwingWorker() {
!                 public Object construct() {
                      try {
!                     return new VergilApplication(args);
                      } catch (Throwable throwable) {
                          System.err.println("xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx");
 
                          // If we get an Error or and Exception while
                          // configuring, we will end up here.
                          _errorAndExit("Command failed", args, throwable);
+                         return null;
                      }
                  }
!             };
!             w.start();
          } catch (Throwable throwable2) {
              // We are not likely to get here, but just to be safe
              // we try to print the error message and display it in a



Kevin Ruland wrote:
> As a follow up, the second experiment of putting selected lines from
> _createEmptyConfiguration() into invokeLater() calls also helped out
> greatly.  I cannot inherit the VergilApplication and reimplement the
> _createEmptyConfiguration( ) method because of some critical private
> data members (configuration for one).
>
> After a few more hours of hacking we'll probably end up with all the
> splash functionality in VergilApplication itself.  This does have at
> least one added benefit because VergilApplication will know exactly
> when to bring the splash down so there will be no need for a timer.  I
> don't feel completely comfortable with the work I'm doing now because
> I don't really understand the deeper Ptolemy/Vergil issues and don't
> have access to all the test cases.  Christopher, if you can, I'd like
> to leave this in your court to finish.
>
> Kevin
>> The first experiment (removing the invokeLater from main()) was
>> promising.  Now to coerce
>> VergilApplication._createEmptyConfiguration() to use invokeLater().
>>   
>