ERROR: nullPointerException in applet

[barney]

Hi, I have this applet that starts as soon as the page is loaded. But i wanted it so you have to click the applet before it starts(getting keyboard focus) or else its just a race to click the applet before you die... so i tried the following:

Code:

public class Whatever implements Runnable,KeyListener,MouseListener{
...
Graphics begin;
Thread th;
...
public void init(){
 ...
 begin.drawString("click to start",100,50);
 addMouseListener(this);
}
...
public void mousePressed(MouseEvent e){
 begin.dispose();
 th.start();
}

And i got a NullPointerException... whatever that is. So everything else works fine.
Could anyone tell me a better way to go about this or a way to fix it?
Thanks.

[lenny]

NullPointerException means that you're trying to use an object that is null, i.e., you haven't "new"-ed it.
You're not showing all of the code, and you didn't say when exactly you're getting the exception (immediately, or when you click the applet with the mouse?). Are you sure you created th, because I don't see that in the code, and if you didn't then th.start() would throw an NullPointerException because that is null.