Java SE (Java Platform, Standard Edition)

Greetings,

I hope this is the proper forum for memory issues.

I have an enterprise database reporting desktop application that I am developing. The GUI application reports on a huge set of data that results in the app taking up to 125 MB worth of memory when fully loaded. There are moments in using the application that all of the data will need to be refreshed entirely, and the JFrame that reports it be reloaded in the process.

I am wondering how to dispose the JFrame and release all of the data associated with it. I use NetBeans to develop my GUI, and so all of the data that is needed for the JFrame is a class variable of the JFrame (so the data can be accessed as it is needed). But, when the frame is disposed, I no longer need anything associated with the JFrame that gets disposed. The Javadoc for Window.dispose() seems to imply that not all of the resources will be released and GC'd when you call dispose, because it says "The Window and its subcomponents can be made displayable again by rebuilding the native resources with a subsequent call to pack or show." which to me says that the data is being remembered and not collected by the GC.

Anyone have any tips for GUIs and memory management? It seems like any GUI app could get pretty large pretty fast if there's no way to release the data associated with the GUI.

Here's the code I've tested that doesn't seem to be releasing the memory (stress tests of closing and re-opening the window multiple times shows the java.exe process eating more and more memory):

    public void reset(){
        this.dispose();
        java.awt.EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {

            public void run() {
                new PartsDashboard(partNum, dateFrom, dateTo);
            }
        });
        try{
            this.finalize();
        } catch (Throwable t){
            t.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

Thanks in advance.