Editing Event dispatching thread (section)

=== Worker design pattern ===
Both execution of a task in another thread and presenting the results in the EDT can be combined by means of ''[[SwingWorker|worker design pattern]]''. The <code>[[SwingWorker|javax.swing.SwingWorker]]</code> class, developed by [[Sun Microsystems]], is an implementation of the worker design pattern, and as of Java 6 is part of standard Swing distribution. SwingWorker is normally invoked from EDT-executed event Listener to perform a lengthy task in order not to block the EDT.

====Samples====
<syntaxhighlight lang="java">
SwingWorker<Document, Void> worker = new SwingWorker<Document, Void>() {
    public Document doInBackground() throws IOException {
        return loadXML(); // heavy task
    }
    
    public void done() {
        try {
            Document doc = get();
            display(doc);
        } catch (Exception ex) {
            ex.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
};
worker.execute();
</syntaxhighlight>

If you use [[Groovy (programming language)|Groovy]] and <code>groovy.swing.SwingBuilder</code>, you can use <code>doLater()</code>, <code>doOutside()</code>, and <code>edt()</code>. Then you can write it more simply like this:

<syntaxhighlight lang="groovy">
doOutside {
    def doc = loadXML() // heavy task
    edt { display(doc) }
}
</syntaxhighlight>

====Equivalents====
* <code>System.ComponentModel.BackgroundWorker</code> - [[.NET Framework]]
* <code>flash.system.Worker</code> - [[Adobe Flash]]
* <code>android.os.AsyncTask</code> - [[Android (operating system)|Android]]