ThreadUtil – how to update the user interface within a thread?

Hi all,

I am reading a series of TIFF files which are really slow to read (and save) to disk. The names of these files is stored into a Swing JComboBox, and each image is displayed into a separate window . Since the whole process is painfully slow, I tried to insert the routine within a ThreadUtil, like this:

List <String> names; // array with a series of filenames to open

ThreadUtil.bgRun( new Runnable() { @Override public void run() {
openFilesFromDisk(names);

transferFileNamesToComboBox(names);

openWindowsToDisplayEachFile(names);

}});

Updating the combobox and displaying the images within the thread issues 3 errors like:

• org.pushingpixels.substance.api.UiThreadingViolationException: Component creation must be done on Event Dispatch Thread
• org.pushingpixels.substance.api.UiThreadingViolationException: State tracking must be done on Event Dispatch Thread
• org.pushingpixels.substance.api.UiThreadingViolationException: Component state change must be done on Event Dispatch Thread

2 questions:

• is there a swing thread that we can use to update user interface elements from within a calculation thread?
• is there a way to wait until the ThreadUtil.bgRun is finished and then only update the user interface element?
• should I implement sub-threads?

I suspect it is a classical issue in Java, but I am stuck…

Thank you in advance for any suggestion. Fred