applet not working..... and I can't figure out why

[tyler jones]

I've worked on this code for 2 days and I'm not sure why this applet won't run correctly. It's supposed to accept a parameter called Times which would have time values separated by the | symbol .... 10:15|14:20|8:30 ... and so on. Then it's supposed to create an alarm object for each time and the alarm object is supposed to go off and write to the screen whenever that time has been reached or exceeded. I'm pretty new to writing applets and java in general, so I'm not sure where I'm going wrong. It compiles fine with no errors, but it just won't sound the alarm or write to the screen when the time has been reached. Thanks.

import java.io.InputStream;
import java.util.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.net.*;
import java.applet.*;
import java.text.*;

public class AlarmContainer extends java.applet.Applet {

    private int index;
    int background[] = new int[3];
    private String tmpStr = "";
    private Date d = new Date();
    private DateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yy H:mm");
    private GregorianCalendar today = new GregorianCalendar();
    private int day = today.DAY_OF_MONTH;
    private int month = today.MONTH;
    private int year = today.YEAR;
    public void init() {
setSize(1, 1);
StringTokenizer bgColor = new StringTokenizer(getParameter("bgColor"),",");
StringTokenizer Times = new StringTokenizer(getParameter("Times"),"|");
//populate array of alarm clocks with date time values passed in
if ( Times.countTokens() > 0 )
{
AlarmClock c[] = new AlarmClock[Times.countTokens()];
for ( int i = 0; i < c.length; i++ )
{
tmpStr = Times.nextToken();
if ( tmpStr.trim().length() > 0 )
{
try {
d = df.parse( month + "/" + day + "/" + year + " " + tmpStr );
c[i] = new AlarmClock( d );
}
catch (ParseException pe) {}
}
}

}
//create array of rgb values for background color
for ( int i = 0; i < 3; i++ )
{
if ( bgColor.hasMoreTokens() ) 
background[i] = Integer.parseInt(bgColor.nextToken());
else
background[i] = 0;
}

setBackground(new Color(background[0],background[1],background[2]));
    }
    public void start() {
    }
    public void stop() {
    }
  public void paint(Graphics g) {
g.setColor(Color.black);
g.drawString("Applet Initialized!",10,10);
    }
private class AlarmClock extends java.applet.Applet implements Runnable
{
private String sounds;
    private int index;
    private AudioClip audio;
    private String message;
private Date activityDate = new Date();
private Graphics g = new Graphics();

        public void run()
{
try 
{
                        Date d = new Date();
if ( d.getTime() <= activityDate.getTime() )
{
ringAlarm();
g.drawString("Alarm time reached.",20,20);
repaint();
}
Thread.sleep(1000);
}
catch (InterruptedException e ) {}
        }
public AlarmClock(Date timeToSet){
activityDate = timeToSet;
sounds = "Alarm.au";
message = "You have an event due.";
Thread t = new Thread(this);
t.start();
}
public AlarmClock(Date timeToSet, String soundFile){
activityDate = timeToSet;
sounds = soundFile;
message = "You have an event due.";
Thread t = new Thread(this);
t.start();
}

public AlarmClock(Date timeToSet, String soundFile, String mess){
activityDate = timeToSet;
sounds = soundFile;
message = mess;
Thread t = new Thread(this);
t.start();
}
    public void ringAlarm() 
{
try {
    if (audio != null) 
{
audio.stop();
audio = null;
    }
    String url = sounds;
    if (url.length() > 0) 
{
audio = getAudioClip(new URL(getDocumentBase(), url));
audio.play();
    }
} 
catch(Exception e) {}
    }
}
//end of inner class
}

[ June 04, 2002: Message edited by: tyler jones ]

[Manfred Leonhardt]

Hi Tyler,
Just a few things to help you out. You are using the Calendar functions incorrectly. You are not getting the correct day, month, or year. You should do the following:

  private int day = today.get( today.DAY_OF_MONTH );
  private int month = today.get( today.MONTH ) + 1;
  private int year = today.get( today.YEAR );

The other problem that I can see is that you need to loop in your run method to keep checking the time. Otherwise you will only check once and your done! You also have your comparison backwards. What you want:

    public void run()
    {
      boolean timeHit = false;
      while( !timeHit )
      {
        try
        {
          if ( new Date().getTime() >= activityDate.getTime() )
          {
            System.out.println( "Alarm hit!" );
            timeHit = true;
          }
          Thread.sleep( 1000 );
        }
        catch (InterruptedException e ) 
        { 
          timeHit = true;
        }
      }
    }

I am not sure what you are trying to do by having your AlarmClock extend Applet ... I would just have it pop up a Dialog or something when the alarm is hit and forget trying to have 2 applets.
Regards,
Manfred.

[Craig Jackson]

I agree, I would suggest you have a "pop" window for the the alarm. But anyway, I also agree you are only checking the time once in the AlarmClock in the run method and once you exit the method at the point the thread is dead.
craig

[tyler jones]

Thanks for your input and suggestions. I really appreciate it. As for why I'm extending Applet, I was doing that because the applet class provided me with the audioclip class so I can play an alarm sound. I wasn't aware of another way to be able to get the audioclip class without extending applet. I don't understand why you added 1 to the month though that is being returned by the calendar. I didn't see in Sun's documentation that the call to get the month returned the previous month. Is this the case or is there something else going on that I don't see? Thanks.

[Manfred Leonhardt]

Hi Tyler,
The Calendar MONTH value is zero based. Therefore the month of June will be 5. When you use the 5 in your SimpleDateFormat it will be the wrong month. Therefore you will need to add 1 to the value to get the correct date out of your SimpleDateFormat method call.
Regards,
Manfred.