[ajug-members] Understanding Swing memory management

[John Wells]

Guys,

The aforementioned swing app I'm working on does a few image manipulations
and quickly soaks up around 75 megs.  I run garbage collection manually
and don't really see any massive reductions.

However...if I call hide() on the main window or minimize the application,
the app's footprint drops to around 1.4 meg.  Restoring the window only
brings its footprint up to around 10 meg...even when the two large image
objects remain resident (and one visible).

Obviously, I'm seriously missing key insights into why this is happening. 
I am concerned about the app's footprint to begin with, so any size
reductions I can get will be very welcome.

Could anyone take a stab at explaining what is going on, or point me at
some good refernce material that might explain this behavior?  I've looked
through some of the garbage collection docs on Sun's site but have yet to
find one that would reveal any insights into this particular situation.

Thanks very much for the help, as always.

John