The Life Cycle of an Applet

The Life Cycle of an Applet
	Chapter 7. Java™ Applets - An Introduction

The life cycle of the applet has the following stages:

The appletviewer loads and creates the specified class.
The applet initializes itself.
The applet starts running.
When finished the applet is destroyed.

The applet always receives an init() method first and then a start() and paint() call (Note: This may happen asynchronously! i.e. at the same time).

  
	java.applet
	Class Applet

	java.lang.Object
	  |
	  +--java.awt.Component
	        |
	        +--java.awt.Container
		    |
	              +--java.awt.Panel
	                    |
	                    +--java.applet.Applet

To use the java.applet.Applet class to make a useful applet you must create a subclass of Applet. To do this, you must override some (or all) of the following methods:

init() - This method 'sets-up' the applet, called once when the applet is first initialized. Use this method to set up the display of the applet, set colours etc.
start() - Called whenever the applet is visited, i.e. the applet starts running again. You could use this method to start up an animation that stops when the applet is minimised. This method would be called when the web browser has been restored after being minimised.
stop() - Called when the applet is no longer active (e.g. minimized)
paint()- This method is called whenever the appearance of the applet is required to be updated, such as when the applet is being maximized from a minimized state. The appearance needs to be updated. It is also possible for the programmer to call this method. This method does nothing by default, you must write the code.
destroy() - Called when the applet is discarded. This method should perform any closing down tasks that you would wish to perform, such as closing connections to databases, etc.


A Simple Applet Example - Hello World!		Hello World Applet - In Detail