Painting in Swing

Question

I have a class (Timeline) which extends JPanel. The Timeline Panel contains many JLabels (green and orange elements) which are positioned manually ("null-Layout"). On top of the Timeline are some buttons for switching between months. Sometimes when i switch between months swing won't paint the JLabels but always paints the grid background.

I've already tried many of the "magic" methods(repaint, revalidate, invalidate, validate, updateUI).

Successfully painted Timeline:

Failed painting:

A short example:

public interface IDateSelectorRegistrar {

  void addListener(DateSelectorListener listener);

  void removeListener(DateSelectorListener listener);
}

public interface DateSelectorListener {
  void dateChanged(Timestamp from, Timestamp to);
}

public interface ITimelineModel {
  Timespan[] getTimespans(Timestamp from, Timestamp to);
}

public class Timespan {
  private String title;
  private Timestamp to;
  private Timestamp from;

  public Timespan(String title, Timestamp from, Timestamp to) {
    this.title = title;
    this.from = from; 
    this.to = to;
  }

  // setters and getters
}

public class TimelineLabel extends JLabel {
  public TimelineLabel(Timespan timespan) {
    super(timespan.getTitle());
  }

  @Override
  protected void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
    // paint colored background
    super.paintComponent(g);
  }
}

public class Timeline extends JPanel {

   public Timeline(final ITimelineModel model, IDateSelectorRegistrar registrar) {
     registrar.addListener(new DateSelectorListener() {
       public void dateChanged(Timestamp from, Timestamp to) {
         Timeline.this.removeAll();
         Timespan[] timespans = model.getTimespans(from, to);
         for(Timespan timespan : timespans) {
           TimelineLabel label = new TimelineLabel(timespan);
           Timeline.this.add(label);
           // label positioning because of Timestamp object data
         }
         // repaint of timeline
         Timeline.this.invalidate();
         Timeline.this.repaint();
       }
     });
   }

   @Override
   protected void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
      // paint background grid
      super.paintComponent(g);
   }
}

Answer 1

Calling following methods in the following order fixed the problem:

invalidate();
repaint();
validate();

Answer 2

As an alternative, consider org.jfree.chart.renderer.category.GanttRenderer, which is ideal for time domain charts and admits a variety of customization. An example, illustrated below, may be found here.