How to Display Animated Backgrounds in Swing with an Animated GIF

An animated GIF can be effortlessly displayed in a Swing application, but animating an image as a background requires a different approach. To load an animated image for a background, it is ideal to utilize an ImageIcon to obtain the image.

ImageIcon provides an animated image, unlike other methods that deliver static images. The following code demonstrates how to animate the background of a panel with 50 buttons using an animated GIF:

import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.border.EmptyBorder;
import java.net.URL;

class ImagePanel extends JPanel {

    private Image image;

    ImagePanel(Image image) {
        this.image = image;
    }

    @Override
    public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
        super.paintComponent(g);
        g.drawImage(image,0,0,getWidth(),getHeight(),this);
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        URL url = new URL("https://i.sstatic.net/iQFxo.gif");
        final Image image = new ImageIcon(url).getImage();
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
            public void run() {
                JFrame f = new JFrame("Image");
                f.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
                f.setLocationByPlatform(true);

                ImagePanel imagePanel = new ImagePanel(image);
                imagePanel.setLayout(new GridLayout(5,10,10,10));
                imagePanel.setBorder(new EmptyBorder(20,20,20,20));
                for (int ii=1; ii
This code creates an ImagePanel, which stretches the animated image to fill the panel's size. It then adds 50 buttons to the panel, resulting in an animated background with interactive buttons.