how do I remove a JPanel from a contentPane?

[Matt Wilcko]

Hi,
I am working on a program and when it starts a splash screen appears. After 5 seconds I would like it to disappear. I have no problem making the splash screen appear but I am stumped with removing it. Here is how I have it setup:
Under the a class FrameSet(extends JFrame), I have:
Container contentPane = getContentPane();
WorkAreaPanel workArea = new WorkAreaPanel(); //extends JPanel, displays jpeg using g2d.Drawimage
contentPane.add(workArea);
this works fine.. I assume to remove it I would use:
contentPane.remove(workArea); OR
contentPane.removeAll;
no luck, simply having either of these last lines in there causes the workArea(which is my splash screen) to never appear.
help!
Are there any good tutorials on this?
Thanks!

[Nathan Pruett]

You're going to have to have a thread to control this... something like the example below :

import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Font;
import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.GridBagConstraints;
import java.awt.GridBagLayout;
 
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JTextField;
 
public class SplashExample extends JFrame {
    
    private JPanel real;
    private JPanel splash;
    
    public SplashExample() {
        super( "Splash Example" );
        splash = new SplashPanel();
        real = new RealPanel();
        getContentPane().add( splash );
    }
    
    public void setVisible( boolean b ) {
        super.setVisible( b );
        if ( b ) {
            Runnable r = new Runnable() {
                public void run() {
                    try {
                        Thread.sleep( 5000 );
                        getContentPane().invalidate();
                        getContentPane().remove( splash );
                        getContentPane().add( real );
                        getContentPane().validate();
                    } catch ( InterruptedException x ) {
                        x.printStackTrace();
                    }
                }
            };
            Thread t = new Thread( r );
            t.start();
        }
    }
    
    public static void main( String[] args ) {
        JFrame f = new SplashExample();
        f.setDefaultCloseOperation( EXIT_ON_CLOSE );
        f.setBounds( 300, 300, 300, 300 );
        f.setVisible( true );
    }    
    
    private static class SplashPanel extends JPanel {
        
        private Font font = new Font( "SansSerif", Font.BOLD | Font.ITALIC, 25 );
        
        public SplashPanel() {
            setBackground( Color.blue );
            setForeground( Color.white );
        }
        
        protected void paintComponent( Graphics g ) {
            super.paintComponent( g );
            g.setFont( font );
            g.drawString( "SPLASH", 50, 100 );
            int stringWidth = g.getFontMetrics().stringWidth( "SCREEN" );
            g.drawString( "SCREEN", getWidth() - 50 - stringWidth, getHeight() - 100 );
        }
    }
    
    private static class RealPanel extends JPanel {
        
        public RealPanel() {
            GridBagLayout gbl = new GridBagLayout();
            GridBagConstraints c = new GridBagConstraints();
            setLayout( gbl );
            for ( int i = 0; i < 10; i++ ) {
                JLabel l = new JLabel( "Field " + (i+1) + ": " );
                c.gridwidth = GridBagConstraints.RELATIVE;
                c.gridx = 0;
                c.gridy = i;
                c.weightx = .2;
                c.fill = GridBagConstraints.BOTH;
                gbl.addLayoutComponent( l, c );
                add( l );
                JTextField tf = new JTextField( 30 );
                c.gridwidth = GridBagConstraints.REMAINDER;
                c.gridx = 1;
                c.weightx = .8;
                gbl.addLayoutComponent( tf, c );
                add( tf );
            }
        }
    }
}