Splash screens are a standard part of any modern graphical user interface (GUI) application. Their primary purpose is to let the user know that the application is starting up. An application that displays a polished and professional-looking splash screen can occupy the user’s attention and gain the user’s confidence that the application is starting. In addition, splash screens may provide marketing information. And they are sometimes required for legal reasons: to present copyright information, third-party logos, and so forth.You can use Java Foundation Classes/Swing (JFC/Swing) or AWT to create splash screens in Java technology applications. However, because the main purpose of a splash screen is to provide the user with feedback about the application’s startup, the delay between the application’s startup and the moment when the splash screen pops up should be minimal. Before the splash screen can pop up, the application has to load and initialize the JVM*, AWT, usually Swing, and perhaps some application-dependent libraries. The resulting delay of several seconds has made use of a Java technology-based splash screen less than desirable. Until now.Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE, formerly known as J2SE) version 6, code-named Mustang, provides a solution that allows the application to show the splash screen much earlier, even before the virtual machine starts. Now, a Java application launcher is able to decode an image and display it in a simple nondecorated window.
Reference: http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/J2SE/Desktop/javase6/splashscreen/
Orange Slate 