container not appearing

I've written applets before, but Bill Clinton was President, and I seem to have forgotten a lot. The applet below needs to pop up a window and ask the user to fill in a JTextArea field. The problem is that the container never appears. Help! The method textbox gets called from Javascript; my thinking was that the container should appear with a prompt, let the user fill in multiple lines of text, then return when the user hits OK or Cancel.

import java.applet.Applet;
import javax.swing.*;

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;

public class textboxApplet extends Applet implements ActionListener {
	private static final long serialVersionUID = 1;
	boolean buttonPressed = false;

/**
	 * Constructor of the applet.
	 *
	 * @exception HeadlessException if GraphicsEnvironment.isHeadless()
	 * returns true.
	 */
	public textboxApplet() {
		super();
	}

/**
	 * Called by the browser or applet viewer to inform
	 * this applet that it is being reclaimed and that it should destroy
	 * any resources that it has allocated. The <code>stop</code> method
	 * will always be called before <code>destroy</code>. 
	 *
	 * A subclass of <code>Applet</code> should override this method if
	 * it has any operation that it wants to perform before it is
	 * destroyed. For example, an applet with threads would use the
	 * <code>init</code> method to create the threads and the
	 * <code>destroy</code> method to kill them. 
	 */
	public void destroy() {
		// Put your code here
	}

/**
	 * Returns information about this applet. An applet should override
	 * this method to return a <code>String</code> containing information
	 * about the author, version, and copyright of the applet. 
	 *
	 * @return a string containing information about the author, version, and
	 * copyright of the applet.
	 */
	public String getAppletInfo() {
		return "This is my default applet created by Eclipse";
	}
	
	/**
	 * Called by the browser or applet viewer to inform
	 * this applet that it has been loaded into the system. It is always
	 * called before the first time that the <code>start</code> method is
	 * called. 
	 *
	 * A subclass of <code>Applet</code> should override this method if
	 * it has initialization to perform. For example, an applet with
	 * threads would use the <code>init</code> method to create the
	 * threads and the <code>destroy</code> method to kill them. 
	 */
	public void init() {
		System.err.println("entering init");
//		try
//		{
//			SwingUtilities.invokeAndWait(new Runnable() 
//			{
//				public void run()
//				{
//					add(new JLabel("hello CIS"));
//				}
//			});
//		}
//		catch (Exception e)
//		{
//			System.err.println("textBoxGUI didn't complete successfully");
//		}
	}
	
	/**
	 * Called by the browser or applet viewer to inform
	 * this applet that it should start its execution. It is called after
	 * the <code>init</code> method and each time the applet is revisited
	 * in a Web page. 
	 *
	 * A subclass of <code>Applet</code> should override this method if
	 * it has any operation that it wants to perform each time the Web
	 * page containing it is visited. For example, an applet with
	 * animation might want to use the <code>start</code> method to
	 * resume animation, and the <code>stop</code> method to suspend the
	 * animation. 
	 */
	public void start() {
		System.out.println("entering start");
		}
	
	/**
	 * Replaces the Javascript prompt function. It puts up a textbox, OK and Cancel buttons, 
	 * and returns a String if the user hits OK. 
	 * @param msg: 	the prompt to the user
	 * @return:		String
	 */
	 public String textbox(String prompt) {
		 System.err.println("entering textbox");
		 setLayout(new BorderLayout());
		 JTextField promptMsg = new JTextField(prompt);
		 add(promptMsg, "North");
		 System.err.println("added prompt to container");
		 JTextArea display = new JTextArea(8, 40);
		 add(display, "Center");
		 System.err.println("added JTextArea to container");
		 addButton(this, "OK");
		 System.err.println("added OK button to container");
		 addButton(this, "Cancel");
		 System.err.println("added Cancel button to container");
		 setVisible(true);
		 validate();
		 while (!buttonPressed)
			 ;
		 return (display.toString());
 	}

private void addButton(Container c, String s)
	 {
		 JButton b = new JButton(s);
		 c.add(b);
		 b.addActionListener(this);
	 }
	 
	/**
	 * Called by the browser or applet viewer to inform
	 * this applet that it should stop its execution. It is called when
	 * the Web page that contains this applet has been replaced by
	 * another page, and also just before the applet is to be destroyed. 
	 *
	 * A subclass of <code>Applet</code> should override this method if
	 * it has any operation that it wants to perform each time the Web
	 * page containing it is no longer visible. For example, an applet
	 * with animation might want to use the <code>start</code> method to
	 * resume animation, and the <code>stop</code> method to suspend the
	 * animation. 
	 */
	public void stop() {
		// Put your code here
	}

public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
		String s = e.getActionCommand();
		System.err.println("actionPerformed: s=" + s.toString());
		buttonPressed = true;
	}

}

That seems like a weird way to do things to me. You're expecting the applet to resize itself, apparently, when you add those components. Maybe it can't do that.

Why don't you just do things the normal way and prepare the GUI in the init() method?

I need to specify a prompt and some dimensions. I don't think I can do that with init, can I?

Paul Clapham wrote:That seems like a weird way to do things to me. You're expecting the applet to resize itself, apparently, when you add those components. Maybe it can't do that.

Why don't you just do things the normal way and prepare the GUI in the init() method?

Now I see what is happening--I didn't have the size of the applet specified in the HTML.