JAVA SWT Animated GIF

Question

I need to add animated gif in form of spinner, into some SWT widget like for example Label. This Label will be as default labelSpiner.setEnabled(false). When I start some long duration operation this Label with spinner will show (labelSpinner.setEnabled(true))in right corner of window.

Normaly Image can be added to Label by labelSpinner.setImage(arg0)

If I add this SPINNER.GIF normal way into Label, it wont animate, its only static Image.

Does anybody know how to add animated gif (for example some spinner) into SWT based JAVA SE app widget? I browsed many examples but many of them were useless, and those good were too complicated.

I would like to do it very simple.

Can somebody help?

Answer 1

Did you try the Eclipse article about SWT Images?

This part will load the image and display it in a Canvas:

ImageLoader loader = new ImageLoader();
loader.load(getClass().getResourceAsStream("Idea_SWT_Animation.gif"));
Canvas canvas = new Canvas(shell,SWT.NONE);
image = new Image(display,loader.data[0]);
int imageNumber;
final GC gc = new GC(image);
canvas.addPaintListener(new PaintListener(){
    public void paintControl(PaintEvent event){
        event.gc.drawImage(image,0,0);
    }
});

And this part updates the gif:

Thread thread = new Thread(){
    public void run(){
        long currentTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
        int delayTime = loader.data[imageNumber].delayTime;
        while(currentTime + delayTime * 10 > System.currentTimeMillis()){
            // Wait till the delay time has passed
        }
        display.asyncExec(new Runnable(){
            public void run(){
                // Increase the variable holding the frame number
                imageNumber = imageNumber == loader.data.length-1 ? 0 : imageNumber+1;
                // Draw the new data onto the image
                ImageData nextFrameData = loader.data[imageNumber];
                Image frameImage = new Image(display,nextFrameData);
                gc.drawImage(frameImage,nextFrameData.x,nextFrameData.y);
                frameImage.dispose();
                canvas.redraw();
            }
        });
    }
};
shell.open();
thread.start();

Answer 2

After trying at least 3 different animated GIF examples, none of which worked, I started working on my own, based mainly on the answer above.

Here is a complete running example including:

• a base64 decoder (courtesy of http://www.source-code.biz/base64coder/java/ )
• spinner GIF
• main method

Remove the main method, base64 methods, and image data, and you will have a working animated GIF canvas.

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;

import org.eclipse.swt.SWT;
import org.eclipse.swt.graphics.GC;
import org.eclipse.swt.graphics.Image;
import org.eclipse.swt.graphics.ImageData;
import org.eclipse.swt.graphics.ImageLoader;
import org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Canvas;
import org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Composite;
import org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display;
import org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Shell;

public class AnimatedGif extends Canvas {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        byte[] d = decode(b64.toCharArray(), 0, b64.length());
        Display display = new Display ();
        Shell shell = new Shell(display);
        shell.setBounds(0, 0, 100, 100);

        AnimatedGif gif = new AnimatedGif(shell, SWT.NONE);
        gif.setLocation(10,10);
        gif.setSize(16, 16);
        gif.load(new java.io.ByteArrayInputStream(d));
        shell.open();
        gif.animate();

        while (!shell.isDisposed ()) {
            if (!display.readAndDispatch ()) display.sleep ();
        }
        display.dispose ();

    }

    private final ImageLoader loader = new ImageLoader();
    private int img = 0;
    private volatile boolean animating = false;
    private Thread animateThread;

    public AnimatedGif(Composite parent, int style) {
        super(parent, style);
    }

    public void load (InputStream resource) throws IOException {
        loader.load(resource);
    }

    public void animate() {
        if (animateThread == null) {
            animateThread = createThread();
            animateThread.setDaemon(true);
        }

        if (animateThread.isAlive())
            return;

        animateThread.start();
    }

    public void stop() {
        animating = false;
        if (animateThread != null)
            try {
                animateThread.join();
                animateThread = null;
            } catch (InterruptedException e) {
                // do nothing
            }
    }

    private Thread createThread() {
        return new Thread() {
            long currentTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
            final Display display = getParent().getDisplay();
            public void run() {
                animating = true;
                while(animating) {
                    img = (img == loader.data.length-1) ? 0 : img + 1;
                    int delayTime = Math.max(50, 10*loader.data[img].delayTime);
                    long now = System.currentTimeMillis();
                    long ms = Math.max(currentTime + delayTime - now, 5);
                    currentTime += delayTime;
                    try {
                        Thread.sleep(ms);
                    } catch(Exception e) {
                        return;
                    }

                    if (!display.isDisposed())
                        display.asyncExec(new Runnable() {

                            @Override
                            public void run() {
                                ImageData nextFrameData = loader.data[img];
                                Image frameImage = new Image(display, nextFrameData);
                                new GC(AnimatedGif.this).drawImage(frameImage, nextFrameData.x, nextFrameData.y);
                                frameImage.dispose();
                                //canvas.redraw();
                            }
                        });
                }

                Display.getDefault().asyncExec(new Runnable() {

                    @Override
                    public void run() {
                        new GC(AnimatedGif.this).fillRectangle(
                                0,
                                0,
                                getBounds().width,
                                getBounds().height);
                    }
                });
            }
        };
    }

    private static final char[] map1 = new char[64];
    static {
        int i = 0;
        for (char c = 'A'; c <= 'Z'; c++)
            map1[i++] = c;
        for (char c = 'a'; c <= 'z'; c++)
            map1[i++] = c;
        for (char c = '0'; c <= '9'; c++)
            map1[i++] = c;
        map1[i++] = '+';
        map1[i++] = '/';
    }

    private static final byte[] map2 = new byte[128];
    static {
        for (int i = 0; i < map2.length; i++)
            map2[i] = -1;
        for (int i = 0; i < 64; i++)
            map2[map1[i]] = (byte) i;
    }

    public static byte[] decode(char[] in, int iOff, int iLen) {
        if (iLen % 4 != 0)
            throw new IllegalArgumentException(
                    "Length of Base64 encoded input string is not a multiple of 4.");
        while (iLen > 0 && in[iOff + iLen - 1] == '=')
            iLen--;
        int oLen = (iLen * 3) / 4;
        byte[] out = new byte[oLen];
        int ip = iOff;
        int iEnd = iOff + iLen;
        int op = 0;
        while (ip < iEnd) {
            int i0 = in[ip++];
            int i1 = in[ip++];
            int i2 = ip < iEnd ? in[ip++] : 'A';
            int i3 = ip < iEnd ? in[ip++] : 'A';
            if (i0 > 127 || i1 > 127 || i2 > 127 || i3 > 127)
                throw new IllegalArgumentException(
                        "Illegal character in Base64 encoded data.");
            int b0 = map2[i0];
            int b1 = map2[i1];
            int b2 = map2[i2];
            int b3 = map2[i3];
            if (b0 < 0 || b1 < 0 || b2 < 0 || b3 < 0)
                throw new IllegalArgumentException(
                        "Illegal character in Base64 encoded data.");
            int o0 = (b0 << 2) | (b1 >>> 4);
            int o1 = ((b1 & 0xf) << 4) | (b2 >>> 2);
            int o2 = ((b2 & 3) << 6) | b3;
            out[op++] = (byte) o0;
            if (op < oLen)
                out[op++] = (byte) o1;
            if (op < oLen)
                out[op++] = (byte) o2;
        }
        return out;
    }

    static String b64 =
            "R0lGODlhEAAQAPf/AMra5KO9zOzz9s3b5MDS3aS+zZOwwsrZ4+bt89jm7IKftuLr" + 
            "8ZCswH6bs9vn7qrD0+Ts8oqnvYKetomlu8PV4t7p79Pg6dzp79vm7q/F1aC6zdTi" + 
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            "zoyov7bK2djk7ICbtIOhtt7p7pq1yc3b5sDU38DR39vm7LDH1afA0Yqovebu85Gt" + 
            "wouovsvZ5oCdtunv9IaiuXyZscrb5qnC0Zezxdjj64WiuZ65y7vQ3N/p8OLq8avE" + 
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            "26/E1LrO3KC5zKW+z8/e577Q3oCctYShubTK2HyasZGtwHuYsdTg6enw89/p76zE" + 
            "04iku+Lr8LXJ2JKvw+Xt8tHf583b57vP3pu2ycjY45m0yNvp7qzE1bHI13qZsaK8" + 
            "zn2aspq0yODp8Nfi6svb5oaiuuDp76vE09Hf6ZWzxMfY4qnC087e5+rx9eLs8pSv" + 
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            "7e7097vP24CctH2atIqlvN7o7tPh6Nzn7JGvwK/F1MbX4dHg6MfY4b7S3c/e5n2b" + 
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            "xZq2x46svuLq8P///yH/C05FVFNDQVBFMi4wAwEAAAAh+QQFAAD/ACwAAAAAEAAQ" + 
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}