Now we're cookin' with gas (is very good stuff)

Well, I was not able to solve the question of
why it did not work your way, but I have come
up with a rather 'hackish' fix that works for the
1.4.2 JVM on XP.

Maybe Alex or others wiil come up with
a better solution..
_______________________________________
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;

class SplashPanel extends JPanel {

   public SplashPanel () {
       setLayout (new BoxLayout (this, BoxLayout.Y_AXIS));

       setBounds (0, 0, 240, 120);
       add (new JLabel ("A really really really wide splash screen."));
       add (new JLabel ("So wide so that it hopefully will show under " +
                             "the main window."));
       add (new JLabel ("And a few JLabels so that it will have a " +
                             "little height"));

       setBackground (Color.WHITE);
       setOpaque (true);
   }
}
/*-------------------------------------------------------------

Next the SqlManEditor
//-------------------------------------------------------------
*/

public class SqlManEditor extends JFrame {

   public SqlManEditor () {
// Simulates initialisation activity in main thread.
// Moving this activity to after the setVisible (true)
// doesn't help much either.
       try { Thread.sleep (500); } catch (Exception e) {}

       pack ();
// You may need to adjust this to get the splash screen to overlap
// the main window.
       setSize (200, 300);
                                   // Code borrowed from showSplash to try
                                   // and force the two windows to overlap.
       Dimension screen = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize ();
       int x = (screen.width - getWidth()) / 2;
       int y = (screen.height - getHeight()) / 2;
       setBounds (x, y, getWidth(), getHeight());

       setVisible (true);
       setDefaultCloseOperation (JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
       // splash.toFront ();
       if ( splash.getFocusableWindowState() )
       {
  splash.requestFocus();
  splash.hide();
  splash.show();
  // splash.toFront ();
  System.out.println("Window to front!");
 }
       else System.out.println("Window is not focusable!");
// Putting the initialisation workload here after the setVisible (true)
// doesn't seem to help either.
   }

   private static JWindow splash;

   private static void showSplash (final int duration) {
       /* final JWindow */ splash = new JWindow ();
       SplashPanel content = new SplashPanel ();

       splash.setContentPane(content);
       splash.pack ();

       Dimension screen = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize ();
       int x = (screen.width - content.getWidth()) / 2;
       int y = (screen.height - content.getHeight()) / 2;
       splash.setBounds (x, y, content.getWidth(), content.getHeight());

       Thread r = new Thread () {
           public void run () {
// TODO: Figure out how to get the splash screen to be "topmost"
//       Currently when the main window is created, it will appear
//       in front of the splash screen.
               splash.setVisible (true);
               // wait a little while
               try { Thread.sleep (duration); } catch (Exception e) {}
               splash.setVisible (false);
               splash = null;
           }
       };
       r.start ();
   }

   public static void main (String [] args) {
       showSplash (10000);
       SqlManEditor s = new SqlManEditor ();
       // s.toBack ();
   }
}
___________________________________

HTH

--
Andrew Thompson
* http://www.PhySci.org/ PhySci software suite
* http://www.1point1C.org/ 1.1C - Superluminal!
* http://www.AThompson.info/andrew/ personal site

If the floating panel is OK to be constrained within the main frame of the
drawing app, then you can achieve that by drawing the toolbox on the glass
pane that always sits at the front of the frame (when enabled). Perhaps this
technique could also be used for the splash screen - you just have to make
the frame big enough to contain it.

In fact, why not simply build the splash screen as the only child of the
frame's content pane to begin with, and then remove it and build the proper
frame contents when your initial actions are complete / timer finishes?

What questions?

Please do not top-post.  It makes
conversations difficult to follow

Did my solution not work for you?

It worked fine in the 1.4.2 JVM on XP.

--
Andrew Thompson
* http://www.PhySci.org/ PhySci software suite
* http://www.1point1C.org/ 1.1C - Superluminal!
* http://www.AThompson.info/andrew/ personal site

...

I'd been meaning to get back on this..

Yeah..  Nice little splash screen.   :-)

Well written, commented, and quite effective.

One _very_ minor complaint.  You included
complete source, a pdf doc*, but not the single
image used in the demo.  I suspect this was
purely an oversight, and a minor one at that.

If you are going to continue to offer the archive,
could you add the image to it?

* (Documentation? I was too lazy to read it,
the source was pretty damn clear.)

--
Andrew Thompson
* http://www.PhySci.org/ PhySci software suite
* http://www.1point1C.org/ 1.1C - Superluminal!
* http://www.AThompson.info/andrew/ personal site