Sluggish Performance Using JTable Displaying Streaming Data

Question

The code I'm referencing is proprietary and requires a multicast server, so I can't post an SSCCE snippet. I understand this may preclude any helpful insight which would elicit viable responses...

I'm compiling with Java 7 u 9.

I'm currently using a JTable in a GUI app that listens to multicast data, and displays it as it arrives. When scrolling the table or resizing columns, the app responds excruciatingly slow.

I thought I structured my code appropriately.

I used a wrapper class, and in it's main() function, it creates an instance of itself, which processes command line arguments, creates listeners, creates the JFrame and calls the class that returns a JTable. This is all done outside of the event dispatch thread.

Then, in the next line, I used the invokeLater() method to create a thread that handles all of the GUI rendering. It creates a JScrollPane, adds the JTable to the scroll pane, sets the scroll bars, sets the viewport, sets the scroll mode, and adds the JScrollPane to a JFrame . This is all handled within the event dispatch thread.

The rows typically populate fairly quick, with the occasional screen freeze (some of the rows contain 30 or more lines), but the responsiveness seems acceptable. However, when scrolling or resizing columns, the response is very slow.

All of the examples I've seen, including the SwingX SwingLabs demo all refer to an initial dataset that is loaded up front. I need an example of using a JTable with streaming data.

Can anyone point me to such an example/demo?

This is my main() snippet...

public static void main(String args[]) 
{
    final JXTrapTableGUI ttg = new JXTrapTableGUI(args);
    SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable()
    {
        public void run() 
        {
            ttg.createAndShowGUI();
        }
    });
}

PS. I want to thank each and everyone who responded. I've been pulled off this project until March 11th, but I will review all responses on that date.

Answer 1

I do not think that JTable works well with streaming data at all. All of the optimization techniques you mentioned, like keeping processing off of the Event Dispatch Thread, are irrlevant if the TableModel does not contain a real list but instead some connection to a data stream.

Without seeing how you attempted to handle this, it's hard to know exactly why it's slow. But here is how I would make it repsonsive: Create a ListModel that stores a List - not a reference to a stream, just a plain List. Have another Thread capture Multicast Data from the stream, lets call it DataStreamCollector. Then launch a Thread that runs on a timer (javax.swing.Timer) that checks with the DataStreamCollector and updates the ListModel as needed.

My design here is assuming that UI responsiveness is more important than 100% synchronization with the data stream. Adjusting the timers should let you trade off having an up-to-date table with having a responsive UI.