How to set the component size with GridLayout Is there a better way

Question

I am working on a larger GUI with Java and I am becoming angry on Layout Managers   I have a  Settings-Panel  with a variable number of JComponents in it  Labels  Buttons  JSpinners  JSliders       I just want the following   JLabel   lt -  JComponent  JLabel   lt -  JComponent  JLabel   lt -  JComponent       My Panel has a size of 500px  so that there is enough space for a lot of components  Unfortunatly the GridLayout always stretches the size of the Components to the whole Panel  even if I set a MaximumSize for every component  It looks stupid if there are only two buttons each with a height of 250px   I tried flow Layout  but i cannot figure out a way to make new lines properly  I tried BoxLayout Y AXIS  but the Components are always centered  and Label and Component are not in the same line   Does anybody know a good and short way with LayoutManagers to handle this properly

User · Answer

You need to try one of the following    GridBagLayout MigLayout SpringLayout   They offer many more features and will be easier to get what you are looking for

User · Answer

Don t use GridLayout for something it wasn t meant to do   It sounds to me like GridBagLayout would be a better fit for you  either that or MigLayout  though you ll have to download that first since it s not part of standard Java    Either that or combine layout managers such as BoxLayout for the lines and GridLayout to hold all the rows   For example  using GridBagLayout   import java awt    import javax swing     public class LayoutEg1 extends JPanel      private static final int ROWS   10       public LayoutEg1             setLayout new GridBagLayout             for  int i   0  i  lt  ROWS  i                  GridBagConstraints gbc   makeGbc 0  i               JLabel label   new JLabel  Row Label      i   1                add label  gbc                JPanel panel   new JPanel                panel add new JCheckBox  check box                 panel add new JTextField 10                panel add new JButton  Button                 panel setBorder BorderFactory createEtchedBorder                 gbc   makeGbc 1  i               add panel  gbc                        private GridBagConstraints makeGbc int x  int y            GridBagConstraints gbc   new GridBagConstraints            gbc gridwidth   1          gbc gridheight   1          gbc gridx   x          gbc gridy   y          gbc weightx   x          gbc weighty   1 0          gbc insets   new Insets 5  5  5  5           gbc anchor    x    0    GridBagConstraints LINE START   GridBagConstraints LINE END          gbc fill   GridBagConstraints HORIZONTAL          return gbc             private static void createAndShowUI             JFrame frame   new JFrame  Layout Eg1            frame getContentPane   add new LayoutEg1             frame setDefaultCloseOperation JFrame EXIT ON CLOSE           frame pack            frame setLocationRelativeTo null           frame setVisible true              public static void main String   args            java awt EventQueue invokeLater new Runnable                 public void run                     createAndShowUI

User · Answer

In my project I managed to use GridLayout and results are very stable  with no flickering and with a perfectly working vertical scrollbar   First I created a JPanel for the settings  in my case it is a grid with a row for each parameter and two columns  left column is for labels and right column is for components  I believe your case is similar   JPanel yourSettingsPanel   new JPanel    yourSettingsPanel setLayout new GridLayout numberOfParams  2      I then populate this panel by iterating on my parameters and alternating between adding a JLabel and adding a component   for  int i   0  i  lt  numberOfParams    i        yourSettingsPanel add labels i        yourSettingsPanel add components i        To prevent yourSettingsPanel from extending to the entire container I first wrap it in the north region of a dummy panel  that I called northOnlyPanel   JPanel northOnlyPanel   new JPanel    northOnlyPanel setLayout new BorderLayout     northOnlyPanel add yourSettingsPanel  BorderLayout NORTH     Finally I wrap the northOnlyPanel in a JScrollPane  which should behave nicely pretty much anywhere   JScrollPane scroll   new JScrollPane northOnlyPanel                                       JScrollPane VERTICAL SCROLLBAR ALWAYS                                       JScrollPane HORIZONTAL SCROLLBAR NEVER     Most likely you want to display this JScrollPane extended inside a JFrame  you can add it to a BorderLayout JFrame  in the CENTER region   window add scroll  BorderLayout CENTER     In my case I put it on the left column of a GridLayout 1  2  panel  and I use the right column to display contextual help for each parameter   JTextArea help   new JTextArea    help setLineWrap true   help setWrapStyleWord true   help setEditable false    JPanel split   new JPanel    split setLayout new GridLayout 1  2    split add scroll   split add help

User · Answer

For more complex layouts I often used GridBagLayout  which is more complex  but that s the price  Today  I would probably check out MiGLayout

User · Answer

An alternative to other layouts  might be to put your panel with the GridLayout  inside another panel that is a FlowLayout  That way your spacing will be intact but will not expand across the entire available space

[java] How to set the component size with GridLayout? Is there a better way?

Examples related to java

Examples related to user-interface

Examples related to swing

Examples related to layout