Java function for building GUI panel - java

I'm building a GUI layout for my application using the grid bag and I'm trying to come up with a function to layout each element so that I don't have to keep re typing the same grid bag code over and over. I want to rewrite this code:
GridBagLayout gridbag = new GridBagLayout();
GridBagConstraints bc = new GridBagConstraints();
this.setLayout(gridbag);
bc.fill = GridBagConstraints.HORIZONTAL;
bc.anchor = GridBagConstraints.WEST;
bc.insets = new Insets(0, 10, 10, 0);
bc.gridx = 0;
bc.gridy = 0;
bc.gridwidth = 1;
this.add(programNameLabel, bc);
so that it can be written calling a function like this:
labelPosition(GridBagConstraints.HORIZONTAL, GridBagConstraints.WEST, 0, 10, 10, 0, 0, 0, 1, programNameLabel);
Here is the function that I have written for the task.
protected void labelPosition(int axis, int direction, int insetOne, int insetTwo, int insetThree, int insetFour, int gridX, int gridY, int gridWidth, JLabel name)
{
GridBagLayout gridbag = new GridBagLayout();
GridBagConstraints bc = new GridBagConstraints();
this.setLayout(gridbag);
bc.fill = axis;
bc.anchor = direction;
bc.insets = new Insets(insetOne, insetTwo, insetThree, insetFour);
bc.gridx = gridX;
bc.gridy = gridY;
bc.gridwidth = gridWidth;
this.add(name, bc);
}
Now it compiles, but when I run it, it doesn't work. All the labels are displayed in a single line rather than the layout that I'm looking for.
Is what I'm trying to do simply possible or am I missing something in my code?? Any suggestions?

You are creating a new GridBagLayout() each time you call your method. You should do that only once, and in your method only create the GridBagConstraints and add the new label to your container (and, btw, by using a more generic type like JComponent you can reuse the same method even for other components than JLabel):
protected void addComponent(int axis, int direction, int insetOne, int insetTwo, int insetThree, int insetFour,
int gridX, int gridY, int gridWidth, JComponent component) {
GridBagConstraints bc = new GridBagConstraints();
bc.fill = axis;
bc.anchor = direction;
bc.insets = new Insets(insetOne, insetTwo, insetThree, insetFour);
bc.gridx = gridX;
bc.gridy = gridY;
bc.gridwidth = gridWidth;
this.add(component, bc);
}
...
GridBagLayout gridbag = new GridBagLayout();
this.setLayout(gridbag);
addComponent(GridBagConstraints.HORIZONTAL, GridBagConstraints.WEST, 0, 10, 10, 0, 0, 0, 1, new JLabel("Hello"));
addComponent(GridBagConstraints.HORIZONTAL, GridBagConstraints.WEST, 0, 10, 10, 0, 0, 1, 1, new JButton("World"));
...
On a side note, if this is a new project, you might consider looking at JavaFX instead of Swing.

Related

Java GridBagLayout components won't go to the designated position

For a school project I want to create a GUI which displays a few statistics of a server. I want to use a GridBagLayout to designate boxes to different statistics. The following picture is what I want the GUI layout to be
But when I run my code it looks like this:
The text should fill their area with the background colour and be in their designated area depicted in the first picture.
This is the code I am using:
package Monitoring;
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
public class MonitoringGui extends JFrame implements ActionListener {
private Configuratie config;
private MonitoringPanel mp;
public MonitoringGui(Configuratie config) {
this.config = config;
setTitle("MonitoringGui");
setSize(850, 600);
setLayout(new GridBagLayout());
setDefaultCloseOperation(WindowConstants.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
// onderdelen toevoegen en verwijderen
JPanel selectorPanel = new JPanel();
selectorPanel.setLayout(new GridBagLayout());
selectorPanel.setBorder(BorderFactory.createLineBorder(Color.black));
addElement(selectorPanel, 0, 0, 4, 2, 0.2, 1, new int[]{20, 20, 20, 20});
// output en input area
JPanel drawArea = new JPanel();
selectorPanel.setLayout(new GridBagLayout());
drawArea.setBackground(Color.lightGray);
addElement(drawArea, 5, 0, 10, 1, 1, 1, new int[]{20, 0, 0, 20});
// buttons, etc
JPanel buttonPanel = new JPanel();
buttonPanel.setLayout(new GridBagLayout());
addElement(buttonPanel, 5, 1, 10, 1, 1, 0.2, new int[]{0, 0, 20, 20});
//grafiek area
JPanel grafiekArea = new JPanel();
grafiekArea.setLayout(new GridBagLayout());
grafiekArea.setBackground(Color.CYAN);
grafiekArea.add(new JLabel("GrafiekArea"));
addElement(grafiekArea, 0, 0, 3, 1, 1, 0, new int[]{20, 20, 20, 20}, drawArea);
//beschikbaar area
JPanel beschArea = new JPanel();
beschArea.setLayout(new GridBagLayout());
beschArea.setBackground(Color.ORANGE);
beschArea.add(new JLabel("BeschArea"));
addElement(beschArea, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, new int[]{20, 20, 20, 20}, drawArea);
//uptime area
JPanel uptimeArea = new JPanel();
uptimeArea.setLayout(new GridBagLayout());
uptimeArea.setBackground(Color.RED);
uptimeArea.add(new JLabel("UptimeArea"));
addElement(uptimeArea, 2, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, new int[]{20, 20, 20, 20}, drawArea);
//schijfruimte area
JPanel schijfruimteArea = new JPanel();
schijfruimteArea.setLayout(new GridBagLayout());
schijfruimteArea.setBackground(Color.GREEN);
schijfruimteArea.add(new JLabel("Schijfruimte"));
addElement(schijfruimteArea, 3, 1, 1, 1, 0.2, 0.2, new int[]{20, 20, 20, 20}, drawArea);
setVisible(true);
}
public void addElement(Component comp, int x, int y, int width, int height, double weightx, double weighty, int[] insets) {
GridBagConstraints c = new GridBagConstraints();
c.fill = GridBagConstraints.BOTH;
c.gridx = x;
c.gridy = y;
c.gridheight = height;
c.gridwidth = width;
c.weightx = weightx;
c.weighty = weighty;
c.insets = new Insets(insets[0], insets[1], insets[2], insets[3]);
add(comp, c);
}
public void addElement(Component comp, int x, int y, int width, int height, double weightx, double weighty, int[] insets, JPanel panel) {
GridBagConstraints c = new GridBagConstraints();
c.fill = GridBagConstraints.BOTH;
c.gridx = x;
c.gridy = y;
c.gridheight = height;
c.gridwidth = width;
c.weightx = weightx;
c.weighty = weighty;
c.insets = new Insets(insets[0], insets[1], insets[2], insets[3]);
panel.add(comp, c);
}
}
I figured out the answer. To make this layout work for my application I have to specify the size of the different panels inside each panel. These are the lines of code I had to add:
selectorPanel.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(120,600));
drawArea.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(660, 600));
grafiekArea.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(670,400));
beschArea.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(220,200));
uptimeArea.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(220,200));
schijfruimteArea.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(220,200));

GridBag not displaying all components in row

I've implemented a JPanel using a GridBagLayout as follows:
fileSelectionDetails = new JPanel();
fileSelectionGridBagLayout = new GridBagLayout();
fileSelectionDetails.setLayout(fileSelectionGridBagLayout);
JLabel lblFile1 = new JLabel("File 1:");
JTextField txtFile1Path = new JTextField();
JButton btnBrowseFile1 = new JButton("Browse...");
addComponentToFileSelectionGrid(lblFile1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 20, 100, GridBagConstraints.NONE, GridBagConstraints.WEST);
addComponentToFileSelectionGrid(txtFile1Path, 1, 0, 3, 1, 60, 100, GridBagConstraints.HORIZONTAL, GridBagConstraints.WEST);
addComponentToFileSelectionGrid(btnBrowseFile1, 2, 0, 1, 1, 20, 100, GridBagConstraints.HORIZONTAL, GridBagConstraints.WEST);
private void addComponentToFileSelectionGrid(Component component, int gridX, int gridY,
int gridWidth, int gridHeight, int weightX,
int weightY, int fill, int anchor) {
GridBagConstraints constraint = new GridBagConstraints();
constraint.gridx = gridX;
constraint.gridy = gridY;
constraint.gridwidth = gridWidth;
constraint.gridheight = gridHeight;
constraint.weightx = weightX;
constraint.weighty = weightY;
constraint.fill = fill;
constraint.anchor = anchor;
fileSelectionGridBagLayout.setConstraints(component, constraint);
fileSelectionDetails.add(component);
}
I want to see my components laid out as follows:
However, what I'm actually seeing is:
i.e. the 'Browse...' button is missing! Why is this?
From your drawing, I’m guessing you don’t want relative widths at all. It appears you want the label and button to be their preferred sizes, and the JTextField to stretch to take up all of the width not used by the label and button.
As camickr suggested, you should give the JTextField a meaningful preferred size by initializing it with a column count, like new JTextField(20).
You can then take advantage of some useful aspects of GridBagLayout and GridBagConstraints:
The default value of gridx and gridy is RELATIVE, which means each component you add is placed to the right of the last one added. Which just happens to be exactly what you want. Therefore, you should not set gridx or gridy at all.
The default value of gridwidth and gridheight is 1. This is what you want. GridBagLayout cells are flexible, so setting one component’s gridwidth to 3 does not make it three times wider than a component whose gridwidth is 1. The width of a cell, or span of cells, depends entirely on what it contains.
When you add a component to a GridBagLayout, the GridBagConstraints object is cloned inside the GridBagLayout. This means you can safely reuse the same GridBagConstraints object over and over, changing just the fields that need to change.
With this knowledge, your code can be simplified to:
fileSelectionDetails = new JPanel(new GridBagLayout());
JLabel lblFile1 = new JLabel("File 1:");
JTextField txtFile1Path = new JTextField(20);
JButton btnBrowseFile1 = new JButton("Browse\u2026");
txtFile1Path.setMinimumSize(txtFile1Path.getPreferredSize());
GridBagConstraints constraints = new GridBagConstraints();
constraints.fill = GridBagConstraints.HORIZONTAL;
constraints.weight = 0;
fileSelectionDetails.add(lblFile1, constraints);
constraints.weight = 1;
fileSelectionDetails.add(txtFile1Path, constraints);
constraints.weight = 0;
fileSelectionDetails.add(btnBrowseFile1, constraints);
You define gridWidth=3 for txtFile1Path but add btnBrowseFile1 at gridX=2. You must set addComponentToFileSelectionGrid(btnBrowseFile1, 4 ...etc.

setting componenets by using GridBagLayout

I am using GridBagLayout to locate components on panel but it is not working like it has to be. Location of components is not affecting by changing x and y values somebody please help explain what mistake i am making here Thanks in advance :)
import java.awt.GridBagConstraints;
import java.awt.GridBagLayout;
import java.awt.Insets;
import javax.swing.*;
public class LMS extends JFrame {
JPanel mainPanel;
JLabel RegNum, Name, FatherNam, MotherNam, DateBirth, BloodGrp, Email, Gender, RegDate, Desig, photo;
JTextField RegNuumText, FatherNamText, MotherNamText, EmailText, DesigText;
JList BloodGrpList;
JSpinner DateSpi;
// Constructor
public LMS() {
this.setTitle("Library Managment System");
this.setVisible(true);
this.setSize(700, 600);
this.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
this.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
// this.setResizable(false);
mainPanel = new JPanel();
// GridBagLayout bag = new GridBagLayout();
mainPanel.setLayout(new GridBagLayout());
// Creating Labels
RegNum = new JLabel("Registration Number");
Name = new JLabel("Full Name");
FatherNam = new JLabel("Father's Name");
MotherNam = new JLabel("Mother's Name");
DateBirth = new JLabel("Date Of Birth");
BloodGrp = new JLabel("Blood Group");
Email = new JLabel("Email");
Gender = new JLabel("Gender");
RegDate = new JLabel("Registration Date");
Desig = new JLabel("Designation");
photo = new JLabel("Photo");
// creating Text Fields
RegNuumText = new JTextField(30);
FatherNamText = new JTextField();
MotherNamText = new JTextField();
EmailText = new JTextField();
DesigText = new JTextField();
// mainPanel.add(RegNum);
addComp(mainPanel, RegNum, 0, 0, 2, 1, GridBagConstraints.EAST, GridBagConstraints.NONE);
addComp(mainPanel, RegNuumText, 0, 1, 2, 1, GridBagConstraints.WEST, GridBagConstraints.NONE);
this.add(mainPanel);
}
private void addComp(JPanel thePanel, JComponent comp, int xPos,
int yPos, int compWidth, int compHeight, int place, int stretch) {
GridBagConstraints gridConstraints = new GridBagConstraints();
gridConstraints.gridx = xPos;
gridConstraints.gridy = yPos;
gridConstraints.gridwidth = compWidth;
gridConstraints.gridheight = compHeight;
gridConstraints.weightx = 1;
gridConstraints.weighty = 1;
gridConstraints.insets = new Insets(5, 5, 5, 5);
gridConstraints.anchor = place;
gridConstraints.fill = stretch;
thePanel.add(comp, gridConstraints);
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
new LMS();
}
}
GridBagLayout is not the easiest one, you have to play a little with it. Maybe these lines help you to achieve what you wanted. They will put the label in the upper left corner and the Textfield right behind it.
Note, that there are panels defined as place holders - they will fill the empty space.
addComp(mainPanel, RegNum, 0, 1, 1, 1, GridBagConstraints.WEST, GridBagConstraints.NONE);
addComp(mainPanel, RegNuumText, 1, 1, 1, 1, GridBagConstraints.WEST, GridBagConstraints.NONE);
addComp(mainPanel, new JPanel(), 2, 1, 1, 1, GridBagConstraints.WEST, GridBagConstraints.HORIZONTAL);
addComp(mainPanel, new JPanel(), 0, 2, 1, 1, GridBagConstraints.WEST, GridBagConstraints.VERTICAL);
You also need to change your helper method a little:
gridConstraints.weightx = stretch == GridBagConstraints.NONE || stretch == GridBagConstraints.VERTICAL ? 0 : 1;
gridConstraints.weighty = stretch == GridBagConstraints.NONE || stretch == GridBagConstraints.HORIZONTAL ? 0 : 1;
I think this should do the trick. Maybe you should define two or three helper methods, so you don't need to set all parameters every time. From my experience, very rarely you will need to define the anchor and only some times you might want to stretch components. Most of the time, for me, it is just puting stuff into the right bags (x, y, sometimes: width, height).
Edit: maybe it would help to put setVisible() at the end of the definition, not the beginning.

JSpinner in a gridbag layout

I have a simple grid bag layout and when I only use text fields, it works correctly. When I put a JSpinner in, the whole layout gets completely messed up. By this I mean two of my three columns completely disappear, the the second column, the only column that appears, consumes the entire width of the window no matter how the window is sized. The complete code is below.
The problem seems to have something to do with spinners specifically, if I use other kinds of JComponents like JLabel the problem does not manifest itself. What did I do wrong that caused the JSpinner to completely destroy the layout?
package product_data.ui;
import java.awt.EventQueue;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JScrollPane;
import javax.swing.JSpinner;
import javax.swing.JTextArea;
import javax.swing.JTextField;
import javax.swing.SpinnerNumberModel;
import java.awt.GridBagLayout;
import java.awt.GridBagConstraints;
import java.awt.Insets;
public class StrippedProductEditor extends JFrame {
/**
*
*/
private static final long serialVersionUID = 5429511033322948114L;
private JLabel lblManufacturer;
private JLabel lblSku;
private JTextField mfrText;
private JTextField skuText;
private JTextArea extraText;
private JLabel lblListPrice;
private JSpinner spinner;
/**
* Launch the application.
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
try {
new StrippedProductEditor();
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
});
}
/**
* Create the application.
*/
public StrippedProductEditor() {
initialize();
}
/**
* Initialize the contents of the frame.
*/
private void initialize() {
setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
GridBagLayout gridBagLayout = new GridBagLayout();
gridBagLayout.columnWidths = new int[] { 0, 0, 0 };
gridBagLayout.rowHeights = new int[] { 0, 0, 0, };
gridBagLayout.columnWeights = new double[] { 0.0, 1.0, 1.0 };
gridBagLayout.rowWeights = new double[] { 0.0, 0.0, 0.0};
getContentPane().setLayout(gridBagLayout);
lblManufacturer = new JLabel("Manufacturer");
GridBagConstraints gbc_lblManufacturer = new GridBagConstraints();
gbc_lblManufacturer.insets = new Insets(0, 0, 5, 5);
gbc_lblManufacturer.gridx = 0;
gbc_lblManufacturer.gridy = 0;
getContentPane().add(lblManufacturer, gbc_lblManufacturer);
mfrText = new JTextField();
GridBagConstraints gbc_lblMfrText = new GridBagConstraints();
gbc_lblMfrText.insets = new Insets(0, 0, 5, 5);
gbc_lblMfrText.fill = GridBagConstraints.HORIZONTAL;
gbc_lblMfrText.gridx = 1;
gbc_lblMfrText.gridy = 0;
getContentPane().add(mfrText, gbc_lblMfrText);
lblSku = new JLabel("SKU");
GridBagConstraints gbc_lblSku = new GridBagConstraints();
gbc_lblSku.insets = new Insets(0, 0, 5, 5);
gbc_lblSku.gridx = 0;
gbc_lblSku.gridy = 1;
getContentPane().add(lblSku, gbc_lblSku);
skuText = new JTextField();
GridBagConstraints gbc_textField_1 = new GridBagConstraints();
gbc_textField_1.insets = new Insets(0, 0, 5, 5);
gbc_textField_1.fill = GridBagConstraints.HORIZONTAL;
gbc_textField_1.gridx = 1;
gbc_textField_1.gridy = 1;
getContentPane().add(skuText, gbc_textField_1);
skuText.setColumns(10);
extraText = new JTextArea();
JScrollPane dictScrollPane = new JScrollPane(extraText);
GridBagConstraints gbc_dict = new GridBagConstraints();
gbc_dict.insets = new Insets(0, 0, 5, 5);
gbc_dict.gridx = 2;
gbc_dict.gridy = 0;
gbc_dict.gridheight = 2;
gbc_dict.fill = GridBagConstraints.BOTH;
getContentPane().add(dictScrollPane, gbc_dict);
lblListPrice = new JLabel("List Price");
GridBagConstraints gbc_lblListPrice = new GridBagConstraints();
gbc_lblListPrice.insets = new Insets(0, 0, 5, 5);
gbc_lblListPrice.gridx = 0;
gbc_lblListPrice.gridy = 2;
getContentPane().add(lblListPrice, gbc_lblListPrice);
double lp = 99.9;
SpinnerNumberModel m = new SpinnerNumberModel(lp, 0.0d,
Double.MAX_VALUE, 0.01d);
spinner = new JSpinner(m);
GridBagConstraints gbc_spinner = new GridBagConstraints();
gbc_spinner.fill = GridBagConstraints.HORIZONTAL;
gbc_spinner.insets = new Insets(0, 0, 5, 5);
gbc_spinner.gridx = 1;
gbc_spinner.gridy = 2;
//commenting out this line will make the layout look
//correct, but then the spinner is missing.
getContentPane().add(spinner, gbc_spinner);
this.pack();
this.setVisible(true);
}
}
So, after digging around the code a bit, I found that the JSpinner.NumberEditor, which is the editor been used to support the SpinnerNumberModel is calculating the fields columns property by using...
try {
String maxString = formatter.valueToString(model.getMinimum());
String minString = formatter.valueToString(model.getMaximum());
ftf.setColumns(Math.max(maxString.length(),
minString.length()));
}
catch (ParseException e) {
// TBD should throw a chained error here
}
Now, as it turns out, maxString equates to 0 (yeah I know), and minString equates to...
179,769,313,486,231,570,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Which equals 411 characters...opps...
Now, you could reduce your models maximum value to something more realistic (like a million for example) or you could adjust the spinners size manually using something like...
((JSpinner.NumberEditor) spinner.getEditor()).getTextField().setColumns(10);
Personally, I prefer option one ;)
The problem arises because your components and layout are underconstrained, but the key problem seems to be that the Spinner's preferred size is not playing nicely with the other components. Everything was much nicer after I added
spinner.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(128, 16));
though column 2 still ended up with width 0. You should set a preferred size on the JTextArea as well to sort that out. Alternatively, you could set a preferred size on the whole JFrame.
If you use eclipse, try it swing plugin http://www.eclipse.org/windowbuilder/
It does all the swing gui stuff for you. Personally it helped me a lot.

About using GridBagLayout in Java

I'm learning how to use GridBagLayout. I created two buttons in a JFrame. I tried making it that one of them occupies one collumn (the default), and the other two collumns, thus being twice the size of the first one (I know I can acheive this using setPrefferredSize, but my intention is to learn how to use gridwidth and gridheight).
What's the problem? Thanks
import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class Main extends JFrame {
Main(){
setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
setSize(500,500);
JPanel panel1 = new JPanel(new GridBagLayout());
JButton b1,b2;
b1 = new JButton("button 1");
b2 = new JButton("button 2");
GridBagConstraints gbc = new GridBagConstraints();
gbc.gridx = 1;
gbc.gridwidth = 1;
panel1.add(b1);
gbc.gridx = 2;
gbc.gridwidth = 2;
panel1.add(b2);
add(panel1);
setVisible(true);
}
public static void main(String[]args){
Main m = new Main();
}
}
It doesn't matter how many columns the second button's width.
Actually both buttons will be asked for their preferred width and the width will be set to them if it's enough space for them.
If it's less space then min width is used.
If there is extra space it's distributed between controls according to weights proportions.
You can try to set iPadX=100 for the first and iPadx=200 and set proportion iPadX=1 for the first and iPadx=2 for the second.
The problem is that all the columns of a GridBagLayout don't have the same width. The widths are computed based on the preferred size of the components they contain. So, you could use 3, 4 or 100 as the gridwidth for the second button, it wouldn't change anything.
You need to use fillx and weightx to change the way the buttons resize.
Try using GridBagConstraint in this way, hope this will help you.
import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class Main extends JFrame {
Main(){
setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
setSize(500,500);
JPanel panel1 = new JPanel(new GridBagLayout());
JButton b1,b2;
b1 = new JButton("button 1");
b2 = new JButton("button 2");
panel1.add(b1, new GridBagConstraints(0, 0, 1, 1, 0.0, 0.0, GridBagConstraints.WEST, GridBagConstraints.HORIZONTAL, new Insets(0, 0, 0, 0), 0, 0));
panel1.add(b2, new GridBagConstraints(1, 0, 1, 1, 2.0, 0.0, GridBagConstraints.WEST, GridBagConstraints.HORIZONTAL, new Insets(0, 0, 0, 0), 0, 0));
add(panel1);
setVisible(true);
}
public static void main(String[]args){
Main m = new Main();
}
}
EDIT
Or change in your code Like this below:
gbc.gridx = 1;
gbc.gridwidth = 1;
panel1.add(b1, gbc);
gbc.gridx = 2;
gbc.gridwidth = 2;
gbc.fill = gbc.HORIZONTAL; //set fill property to HORIZONTAL
gbc.weightx= 2.0;
panel1.add(b2, gbc); //While adding button also add it with gbc

Categories