After scratching around I found that it's best to implement a custom image component by extending a JLabel. So far that has worked great as I can add multiple "images" (jlabels without the layout breaking. I just have a question that I hope someone can answer for me.

• I noticed that in order to animate JLabels across the screen I need to setlayout(null); and setbounds of the component and then to animate eventually setlocation(x,y);. Is this a best practice or a terrible way to animate a component? I plan on eventually making an animation class but I don't want to do so and end up having to chuck it.

I have included relevant code for a quick review check.

import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.Graphics2D;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.Timer;

public class GraphicsPanel extends JPanel  {
    private Timer timer;
    private long startTime = 0;
    private int numFrames = 0;
    private float fps = 0.0f;
    private int x = 0;

    GraphicsPanel() {
        final Entity ent1 = new Entity();
        ent1.setBounds(x, 0, ent1.getWidth(), ent1.getHeight());
        add(ent1);

        //ESSENTIAL
        setLayout(null);

        //GAMELOOP
        timer = new Timer(30, new ActionListener() {
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
                getFPS();
                incX();
                ent1.setLocation(x, 0);
                repaint();
            }
        });
        timer.start();
    }

    public void incX() { x++; }

    @Override
    public void paintComponent(Graphics g)
    {
        super.paintComponent(g);
        Graphics2D g2 = (Graphics2D) g.create();
        g2.setClip(0, 0, getWidth(), getHeight());

        g2.setColor(Color.BLACK);
        g2.drawString("FPS: " + fps, 1, 15);
    }

    public void getFPS()
    {
        ++numFrames;
        if (startTime == 0) {
            startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
        } else {
            long currentTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
            long delta = (currentTime - startTime);
            if (delta > 1000) {
                fps = (numFrames * 1000) / delta;
                numFrames = 0;
                startTime = currentTime;              
            }
        }
    }
}

Thank you!