Thread: What's causing this Null Pointer Exception?

Ok, so how far apart should I draw each one?

Ok, the for loop is somehow drawing all of them together. I want it to draw each one separately but not just show one letter.

I want

TEXT LIKE THIS

with each letter a different color and not the whole phrase in the same color.
Nor do I want it to just show

T

E

X

T

L
I
K
E

T

H

I

S

at different times either.

That's not the problem now. I can space it out enough.

But anyway, it's only applying it to the entire phrase, not the color change to each character.

However, it's not a total loss using the drawChar() method as I can slant the words, something I couldn't do by merely using drawString().

Still, having each character in a different color would be nice.

I'm thinking the reason for that is how my for loop is coded

   import java.util.*;
   import java.awt.*;
   import java.awt.event.*;
   import javax.swing.JOptionPane;
   import javax.swing.*;
   import java.io.*;
   import javax.swing.Timer;
 
   public class DadsBirthdayCard extends JFrame implements ActionListener
   { // beginning of program 
 
      private String birthdayString;
      private JPanel panel;
      private JScrollPane pane;
      private Timer timer;
      private int timesCalledCounter;
      private Random r1,r2,r3;
      private char[] chars;
      private char[] moreChars;
      private int red,green,blue;
 
      public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
      { // beginning of method
 
        // birthdayString = "";
 
         r1 = new Random();
         if (timesCalledCounter ==0)
         {
            birthdayString = "Happy Birthday Dad!";
            System.out.println(birthdayString);
            chars = birthdayString.toCharArray();
 
            red = r1.nextInt(256);
            green = r1.nextInt(256);
            blue = r1.nextInt(256);
            timesCalledCounter++;
 
         }
 
         else if (timesCalledCounter == 1)
         {
            birthdayString = "Happy birthday to you!";
            System.out.println(birthdayString);
            chars = birthdayString.toCharArray();
            red = r1.nextInt(256);
            green = r1.nextInt(256);
            blue = r1.nextInt(256);
            timesCalledCounter++;
 
         }
 
         else
         { // begin else
            birthdayString = "I love you, Paul.";
            System.out.println(birthdayString);
            chars = birthdayString.toCharArray();
            red = r1.nextInt(256);
            green = r1.nextInt(256);
            blue = r1.nextInt(256);
            timesCalledCounter = 0;
 
 
         } // end else
         repaint();
      } // end method
 
 
      public DadsBirthdayCard()
      {
 
         super("Happy Birthday Dad!");
        // birthdayString = "Bodkd";
         panel = new JPanel();
         pane = new JScrollPane(JScrollPane.VERTICAL_SCROLLBAR_ALWAYS, JScrollPane.HORIZONTAL_SCROLLBAR_ALWAYS);
         panel.setSize(5000,5000);
         pane.revalidate();
         timer = new Timer(0, this);
         System.out.println("Listeners:" + Arrays.toString(timer.getActionListeners()));
 
         timer.setDelay(5000);
         timer.start();
       //  chars = birthdayString.toCharArray();
         // r1 = new Random();
         r2 = new Random();
         r3 = new Random();
         System.out.println(birthdayString);
 
         setContentPane(pane);
      }
 
      public void paint(Graphics g)
      {
         super.paint(g);
         System.out.println(Arrays.toString(chars));
         System.out.println(birthdayString);
         g.setFont(new Font("Arial", Font.BOLD + Font.ITALIC, 30));
 
 
         for (int i =0; i < chars.length -1; i++)
         {
            g.setColor(new Color(red,green,blue));
            g.drawChars(chars, i, 1,300 + (6*i),300 + (6*i));
         }
 
 
 
 
 
      }
 
      public void drawCake(Graphics g)
      {
         g.setColor(new Color(184,79,223));
 
 
      }
 
      public static void main(String[] args)
      {
         DadsBirthdayCard dbc = new DadsBirthdayCard();
         dbc.setVisible(true);
      }
   }