Bubble sort animation

Another approach might be to use a SwingWorker.

The SwingWorker creates runs in its own Thread and allows you to “publish” intermittent results to be painted.

The key to the approach below is that a copy of the data is passed to the SwingWorker. This allows the worker to sort the data while the data is being repainted so you don’t have to worry about the data in the array being in an inconsistent state.

After each iteration of the looping code the new state of the array is updated so it can be painted.

This allows you to easily move the sorting logic into the SwingWorker without refactoring.

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.Timer;

public class BubbleSortWorker extends JPanel
{
    private final static int BAR_WIDTH = 30;
    private final static int BAR_HEIGHT_MAX = 400;

    private int[]items;
    private boolean everySwap;

    public BubbleSortWorker(int[] items, boolean everySwap)
    {
        this.items = items;
        this.everySwap = everySwap;
    }

    public void setItems(int[] items)
    {
        this.items = items;
        repaint();
    }

    public void sort()
    {
        new SortWorker(items).execute();
    }

    @Override
    protected void paintComponent(Graphics g)
    {
        super.paintComponent(g);

        for (int i = 0; i < items.length; i++)
        {
            int x = i * BAR_WIDTH;
            int y = getHeight() - items[i];

            g.setColor( Color.RED );
            g.fillRect(x, y, BAR_WIDTH, items[i]);

            g.setColor( Color.BLUE );
            g.drawString("" + items[i], x, y);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public Dimension getPreferredSize()
    {
        return new Dimension(items.length * BAR_WIDTH, BAR_HEIGHT_MAX + 20);
    }

    class SortWorker extends SwingWorker<Void, int[]>
    {
        private int[] items;

        public SortWorker(int[] unsortedItems)
        {
            items = Arrays.copyOf(unsortedItems, unsortedItems.length);
        }

        @Override
        protected Void doInBackground()
        {
            int n = items.length;
            int temp = 0;

            for (int i = 0; i < n; i++)
            {
                for (int j = 1; j < (n - i); j++)
                {
                    if (items[j-1] > items[j])
                    {
                        temp = items[j - 1];
                        items[j - 1] = items[j];
                        items[j] = temp;

                        //  Update after every swap is done

                        if (everySwap)
                        {
                            publish( Arrays.copyOf(items, items.length) );
                            try { Thread.sleep(100); } catch (Exception e) {}
                        }
                    }
                }

                //  Update once per iteration

                if (!everySwap)
                {
                    publish( Arrays.copyOf(items, items.length) );
                    try { Thread.sleep(500); } catch (Exception e) {}
                }
            }

            return null;
        }

        @Override
        protected void process(List<int[]> list)
        {
            int[] items = list.get(list.size() - 1);
            setItems( items );
        }

        @Override
        protected void done() {}
    }

    public static int[]generateRandomNumbers()
    {
        int[] items = new int[10];

        for(int i = 0; i < items.length; i++)
        {
            items[i] = (int)(Math.random() * BubbleSortWorker.BAR_HEIGHT_MAX);
        }

        return items;
    }

    private static void createAndShowGUI()
    {
        BubbleSortWorker bubbleSort = new BubbleSortWorker(BubbleSortWorker.generateRandomNumbers(), true);

        JButton generate = new JButton("Generate Data");
        generate.addActionListener((e) -> bubbleSort.setItems(BubbleSortWorker.generateRandomNumbers() ) );

        JButton sort = new JButton("Sort Data");
        sort.addActionListener((e) -> bubbleSort.sort());

        JPanel bottom = new JPanel();
        bottom.add( generate );
        bottom.add( sort );

        JFrame frame = new JFrame("SSCCE");
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        frame.add(bubbleSort, BorderLayout.CENTER);
        frame.add(bottom, BorderLayout.PAGE_END);
        frame.pack();
        frame.setLocationByPlatform( true );
        frame.setVisible( true );
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception
    {
        EventQueue.invokeLater( () -> createAndShowGUI() );
    }
}

Check out Worker Threads and Swing Worker for more information about SwingWorker.