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Language: Java Language
Expertise: Beginner

May 13, 1997

Question:
I have an applet placed on successive pages that displays different information on each page (a text-scrolling applet). This applet is running on a thread. Is there a way to kill or dispose of this thread when you leave the page on which it was created? I have noticed that from time to time that when I quit using the browser, I can still see the applet scrolling across until Netscape completely disposes of all its memory.

Answer:
The convention is to create threads in init(), start them in start(), and stop them in stop():

public class MyApplet extends Applet {

   private MyThread scroller;

   public void init() {
      scroller = new MyThread(...);
      // etc.
   }

    public void start() {
      scroller.start();
      // etc.
   }

   public void stop() {
      scroller.stop();
      // etc.
   }

   // etc.
}

Each time the user leaves the page, stop() is automatically called, and each time the user moves back onto the page, start() is automatically called.