Why doesn't the label appear until I resize the applet?

[gregsakas]

I am using Eclipse and when I initialize the applet, it displays the labels in the init() function fine but for the labels inside the keyPressed() function, I have to resize the applet to get them to appear after I press enter. Why is this?

import java.applet.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;

public class Test extends Applet implements KeyListener {
	
	Label greeting = new Label("Reaction Test");
	Font big = new Font("TimesRoman", Font.BOLD, 45);
	boolean start = false;
	public void init () {
		setFocusable(true);
		greeting.setFont(big);
		add(greeting);
		add(new Label("Press Enter to begin."));
		this.addKeyListener(this);
		requestFocus();
	}
	public void keyPressed(KeyEvent ke) {
		add(new Label("TEST"));
		if(ke.getKeyCode()==KeyEvent.VK_ENTER) 
			start = true;
		if(start==true) {
			add(new Label("Once you see a letter appear on the screen,"));
			add(new Label("press the shown letter as soon as possible.")); 
			add(new Label("Press any key to begin."));
		}
	}
	@Override
	public void keyReleased(KeyEvent ke) {
		// TODO Auto-generated method stub
		
	}
	@Override
	public void keyTyped(KeyEvent ke) {
		// TODO Auto-generated method stub
		
	}
}

[Norm]

You need to tell the container the labels have been added to so that it can re do the layout and make them visible.

[gregsakas]

I'm sorry, I'm new to java. How would I do that?

[Norm]

Look at the Container class's methods in the API doc. You need to call one of them to tell the container to layout its contents again.

[gregsakas]

Thank you so much. All it took was this.doLayout(); right after I added the strings.

[Norm]

The API doc for doLayout says:
Most programs should not call this method directly, but should invoke the validate method instead.

[DarrylBurke]

Why are you using java.awt.Applet in this day and age? The Swing replacement, javax.swing.JApplet is morethan 10 years old!

db