GUI not updating visually before running ActionEvent

Question

To expound a little more, I have a GUI that looks like:

Then I have an action listener on the OK button that starts like:

//OK Button Action Listener
private void okButtonActionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {   
    //Enable/Disable Buttons
    okButton.setEnabled(false);
    cancelButton.setEnabled(true);
    updateCheckbox.setEnabled(false);
    //Move on to a series of other methods here...

Which should, in theory, make this happen:

However, instead, I get the following until ALL methods and other things connected to the OK button are completed:

This obviously can't happen, because the idea is to make the cancel button available and the OK button and several other tick-boxes unavailable for the duration of the program (Image 2), where, instead, it freezes in a half-state (Image 3). Is there any way to combat this?

Answer 1

Every time you execute logic from the GUI you should be using the SwingWorker in the following way:

SwingWorker myWorker= new SwingWorker<String, Void>() {
    @Override
    protected String doInBackground() throws Exception {
        //Execute your logic
        return null;
    }
};
myWorker.execute();

If you want to update the GUI from inside this logic use InvokeLater:

SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
    @Override
    public void run() {
        //To update your GUI
    }
});

With this you can be sure that both your logic and your GUI stay responsive.

Edit:

You could also use invokeAndWait if this suits your needs more. Link to related answer

Answer 2

//Move on to a series of other methods here...

Make sure you don't block the GUI thread (EDT) with long-running operations. Instead use SwingWorker.

Answer 3

Are you doing some processing on the same thread that's handling the GUI? You might want to look into a SwingWorker thread to do the heavy stuffin the background so your UI remains responsive if so.