public Thread animationthread = null;
public String message;
public int x=100;
Image bufferimage;
Graphics bufferg;
//The following colors are fetched as
//HEXADECIMAL parameters and are used
//to set the background and text color
//of the applet.
Color backgroundcolor,textcolor;
//The "delay" variable is used as a delay
//for each picture frame.
int delay=0;

We have added some variables to set the background and foreground colors. The "delay" variable will be the delay in the animation, as it was in the slideshow applet. Do not forget to paste the getIntegerParameter() method. The init() method must also be altered a bit:

public void init()
{
//We read the message as a parameter instead at the same
   //time as we read a paramter called "delay" for the
    //picture delay.
    message=getParameter("message");
    delay=getIntegerParameter("delay",10);
    //Please note that we read the values in
     //HEXADECIMAL form (with the base 16)
    //and then create a color.
    backgroundcolor=
        new Color(getIntegerParameter("backgroundcolor",16));
    textcolor=new Color(getIntegerParameter("textcolor",16));
    //The following lines are just copied from
    //slideshow2.java
    Dimension d=size();
    bufferimage=createImage(d.width,d.height);
    bufferg=bufferimage.getGraphics();
}

<APPLET CODE="textscroller2.class" WIDTH=100 HEIGHT=20>
<PARAM name="message" 
value="This is textscroller II, now configurable">
<PARAM name="backgroundcolor" value="ff0000">
<PARAM name="textcolor" value="0000ff">
<PARAM name="delay" value="50">
</APPLET>

We have set the background color to red (FF0000) and the text color to blue (0000FF). If you are not used to hexadecimal color values then maybe the following table may be useful:

Red	FF0000
Green	00FF00
Blue	0000FF
Cyan	00FFFF
Yellow	FFFF00
Magenta	FF00FF
Black	000000
Dark Gray	7F7F7F
Light Gray	AFAFAF
White	FFFFFF
Orange	FF7F00
Dark red	7F0000
Dark green	007F00
Dark blue	00007F

All the drawing in the paint() method must be done in the buffer, instead of directly in the applet screen. When it is finished, then the buffer is displayed on the screen:

public synchronized void paint(Graphics g)
{
     //It is always a good idea to check
    //that bufferg has been initialized.
    if (bufferg!=null)
    {
   //Paint the screen with the fetched
        //background color.
        bufferg.setColor(backgroundcolor);
        bufferg.fillRect(0,0,100,20);
      //Draw the message starting from
        //position "x".
        bufferg.setColor(textcolor);
        bufferg.drawString(message,x,12);
        g.drawImage(bufferimage,0,0,this);
        if (x<-400) x=100;
        x--;
    }
}

public void run()
{
   while (true)
    {
        update(getGraphics());
          //The "delay" variable now makes
        //the delay configurable.
        try {Thread.sleep(delay);}
       catch(InterruptedException e) {}
    }
}