How to layout multiple panels on a jFrame java

Question

Layout wanted

I am in the process of making my own java socket game. My game is painting alright to the full screen (where it says "paint graphics here", but im painting to the whole jframe at the moment). I want to add a textbox with a scroll bar for displaying only text, not taking any input and another textbox to take text inputs from the user and then a button to send the text, for chat purposes. But onto my question, how do I even start to lay this out? I understand I need a layout, but can someone help me on this? Here is my code at the moment (this code only sets up painting to the whole screen at the moment, need to divide the screen up now like I have in the picture above):

public class Setup extends JFrame implements Runnable{
     JPanel panel;
     JFrame window;
     public Setup(Starter start, JFrame window){
         window.setSize(600,500);
         window.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
         window.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
         window.setResizable(false);
         panel = new Display(start);
         this.window = window;
     }
     public void run(){
         window.getContentPane().add(panel);
         window.setBackground(Color.BLACK);
         window.setVisible(true);
     }
}

"new Display(start)" - this extends jpanel, its basically where I paint everything graphics wise.

In addition, I've seen people add in different panels but I cant have them be the same size. Like in the picture, the "paint graphics here" panel is the biggest one, and so on.

User · Answer

You ll want to use a number of layout managers to help you achieve the basic results you want   Check out A Visual Guide to Layout Managers for a comparision   You could use a GridBagLayout but that s one of the most complex  and powerful  layout managers available in the JDK   You could use a series of compound layout managers instead   I d place the graphics component and text area on a single JPanel  using a BorderLayout  with the graphics component in the CENTER and the text area in the SOUTH position   I d place the text field and button on a separate JPanel using a GridBagLayout  because it s the simplest I can think of to achieve the over result you want   I d place these two panels onto a third  master  panel  using a BorderLayout  with the first panel in the CENTER and the second at the SOUTH position   But that s me

User · Answer

The JPanel is actually only a container where you can put different elements in it  even other JPanels   So in your case I would suggest one big JPanel as some sort of main container for your window  That main panel you assign a Layout that suits your needs   here is an introduction to the layouts     After you set the layout to your main panel you can add the paint panel and the other JPanels you want  like those with the text in it        JPanel mainPanel   new JPanel      mainPanel setLayout new BoxLayout mainPanel  BoxLayout Y AXIS       JPanel paintPanel   new JPanel      JPanel textPanel   new JPanel       mainPanel add paintPanel     mainPanel add textPanel     This is just an example that sorts all sub panels vertically  Y-Axis   So if you want  some other stuff at the bottom of your mainPanel  maybe some icons or buttons  that should be organized with another layout  like a horizontal layout   just create again a new JPanel as a container for all the other stuff and set setLayout new BoxLayout mainPanel  BoxLayout X AXIS    As you will find out  the layouts are quite rigid and it may be difficult to find the best layout for your panels  So don t give up  read the introduction  the link above  and look at the pictures     this is how I do it     Or you can just use NetBeans to write your program  There you have a pretty easy visual editor  drag and drop  to create all sorts of Windows and Frames   only understanding the code afterwards is     tricky sometimes     EDIT  Since there are some many people interested in this question  I wanted to provide a complete example of how to layout a JFrame to make it look like OP wants it to   The class is called MyFrame and extends swings JFrame  public class MyFrame extends javax swing JFrame          these are the components we need      private final JSplitPane splitPane      split the window in top and bottom     private final JPanel topPanel           container panel for the top     private final JPanel bottomPanel        container panel for the bottom     private final JScrollPane scrollPane     makes the text scrollable     private final JTextArea textArea         the text     private final JPanel inputPanel          under the text a container for all the input elements     private final JTextField textField       a textField for the text the user inputs     private final JButton button             and a  send  button      public MyFrame                first  lets create the containers             the splitPane devides the window in two components  here  top and bottom             users can then move the devider and decide how much of the top component            and how much of the bottom component they want to see          splitPane   new JSplitPane             topPanel   new JPanel               our top component         bottomPanel   new JPanel            our bottom component             in our bottom panel we want the text area and the input components         scrollPane   new JScrollPane        this scrollPane is used to make the text area scrollable         textArea   new JTextArea            this text area will be put inside the scrollPane             the input components will be put in a separate panel         inputPanel   new JPanel            textField   new JTextField          first the input field where the user can type his text         button   new JButton  send          and a button at the right  to send the text             now lets define the default size of our window and its layout          setPreferredSize new Dimension 400  400           let s open the window with a default size of 400x400 pixels            the contentPane is the container that holds all our components         getContentPane   setLayout new GridLayout         the default GridLayout is like a grid with 1 column and 1 row             we only add one element to the window itself         getContentPane   add splitPane                    due to the GridLayout  our splitPane will now fill the whole window             let s configure our splitPane          splitPane setOrientation JSplitPane VERTICAL SPLIT       we want it to split the window verticaly         splitPane setDividerLocation 200                         the initial position of the divider is 200  our window is 400 pixels high          splitPane setTopComponent topPanel                       at the top we want our  topPanel          splitPane setBottomComponent bottomPanel                 and at the bottom we want our  bottomPanel              our topPanel doesn t need anymore for this example  Whatever you want it to contain  you can add it here         bottomPanel setLayout new BoxLayout bottomPanel  BoxLayout Y AXIS       BoxLayout Y AXIS will arrange the content vertically          bottomPanel add scrollPane                     first we add the scrollPane to the bottomPanel  so it is at the top         scrollPane setViewportView textArea            the scrollPane should make the textArea scrollable  so we define the viewport         bottomPanel add inputPanel                     then we add the inputPanel to the bottomPanel  so it under the scrollPane   textArea             let s set the maximum size of the inputPanel  so it doesn t get too big when the user resizes the window         inputPanel setMaximumSize new Dimension Integer MAX VALUE  75           we set the max height to 75 and the max width to  almost  unlimited         inputPanel setLayout new BoxLayout inputPanel  BoxLayout X AXIS         X Axis will arrange the content horizontally          inputPanel add textField             left will be the textField         inputPanel add button                and right the  send  button          pack         calling pack   at the end  will ensure that every layout and size we just defined gets applied before the stuff becomes visible            public static void main String args             EventQueue invokeLater new Runnable                 Override             public void run                    new MyFrame   setVisible true                                       Please be aware that this is only an example and there are multiple approaches to layout a window  It all depends on your needs and if you want the content to be resizable   responsive  Another really good approach would be the GridBagLayout which can handle quite complex layouting  but which is also quite complex to learn

[java] How to layout multiple panels on a jFrame? (java)

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