A DESCRIPTION OF THE REQUEST :
The Timer javadoc (and the online tutorial) states that the timers initial delay is "by default the same as the between-event delay". This could be read to say that the initial delay will always be equal to the between-event delay unless explicitly set.
This is not the case however, the initial delay is set in the constructor and is not affected by calls to setDelay.


http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/javax/swing/Timer.html#setInitialDelay(int)



JUSTIFICATION :
As a consequence this can cause longer or shorter initial delays than expected when a timer gets reused/restarted after the delay was changed by calling setDelay().

Also note that the javadoc says "To make the delay before the first action event different from the delay between events, use the setInitialDelay method."
In fact just calling setDelay can have the same effect, which is not mentioned.

IMHO updating the javadoc as follows would be helpful:
Constructor: Clarify that both the between-event delay and initial delay are set.
setDelay: Clarify that this does not affect the initial delay.
get/setInitialDelay: Clarify that the initial delay is completely independent from the between-event delay and initialy set in the constructor.


---------- BEGIN SOURCE ----------
import javax.swing.*;

public class TimerDemo
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
Timer t = new Timer(1000, null);
t.setDelay(1);
System.out.println("delay="+t.getDelay());
System.out.println("initial delay="+t.getInitialDelay());
}
}

---------- END SOURCE ----------