I'm creating an interface composed out of a box layout which contains panels inside every space.
In this specific case I've got a "cascade" of panels, the first is supposed to be a panel with a FlowLayout as layout manager, underneath it there's a GridLayout and under it there's supposed to be another label.
The thing is that I'd need the first panel to dynamically resize as the window get resized itself.
Here's the problem: I need the first panel to have a specific size in relation to the absolute size.. the thing is that I can't set my preferred size.. in the class I do the following but the panel stays the exact same size as before..
this.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(windowWidth, 50))
I'll send the code as soon as I get home, for now the situation is the one written above.
I need the first panel to have a specific size in relation to the absolute size
Your main panel should be a BorderLayout (which is the default layout of a JFrame), not a BoxLayout.
Then you add the panel that needs to be a specific size to the BorderLayout.NORTH of the frame.
Then your second panel can use a BoxLayout and add this panel to BorderLayout.CENTER of the frame. Now this panel will get all the extra space as the frame is resize.
Related
I am opening a window with the following:
JFrame clientFrame = new JFrame("Frame");
clientFrame.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
final JPanel client_panel = new JPanel();
client_panel.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
client_panel.add(new Applet());
client_panel.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(765, 555));
clientFrame.getContentPane().add(client_panel, "Center");
clientFrame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
clientFrame.pack();
clientFrame.setVisible(true);
the frame has a random picture on it.
By default when you drag the bottom border upwards, it will naturally remove from the image from the bottom of the image.
The same if you drag the top border downwards it will again remove incrementally from the bottom of the picture.
How do I swap it around so instead it removes form the top of the picture instead of from the bottom?
clientFrame.getContentPane().add(client_panel, "Center");
Don't use magic values. People don't know where "Center" comes form. Use variables provided by the API:
clientFrame.getContentPane().add(client_panel, BorderLayout.CENTER);
What you are asking is not possible with any layout manager that I am aware of. The problem is that the layout manager only knows about size available to the component. It does not know why the size changed (ie, drag up or down). So the layout manager can only define rules based on the space available.
As a simple test use a JPanel with a BorderLayout. Then create a JLabel with containing an ImageIcon. Add the label to this panel and then add the panel to the content pane of the frame.
If you add the label to the BorderLayout.CENTER, then the image is centered in the space available so you lose part of the top and bottom.
If you add the label to the BorderLayout.PAGE_START then space is always taken from (or given to) the bottom of the component.
If you add the label to the BorderLayout.PAGE_END then space is always taken from (or given to) the top of the component.
If you want to consider the drag up or down of the frame then the solution gets much more complicated because you will need to add a ComponentListener to the frame and handle the componentResized and componentMoved methods. You will then need to track the previous state of the frame and then determine which properties have changed and then you will need to do custom painting of the image based on the property changes or you will need to write a custom layout manager that is aware of the property changes.
I am trying to design a simple gui interface. The frame consists of a main panel which contains another four panels "Staff Details", "Job Details" "Photo" and buttons. The output is as follows:
I used gridLayout for all the panels except for the "buttons panel" which has borderLayout.
Now I want to reduce the height of the bottom two panels so it won't have the extra space. How do I do that?
Here is the code for the "photo" panel and "button" panel. Both panels now have flow layout.
photoPanel.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(300,70));
photoPanel.add(browsebx);
photoPanel.add(browseBtn);
btnPanel.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(300,70));
btnPanel.add(addBtn);
btnPanel.add(editBtn);
btnPanel.add(deleteBtn);
btnPanel.add(cancelBtn);
Your main panel is using a GridLayout, which means all four panels will be the exact same size. Don't use a GridLayout.
Instead maybe you can use a GridBagLayout. This allows your to add each panel to a specific grid, but each panel will maintain its preferred size as determines by the layout manager used on each of the individual panels.
Read the section from the Swing tutorial on How to Use GridBagLayout for more information and examples.
Remember each of the 4 child panels can use a different layout manager if desired. For example you would probably want to use a FlowLayout for the buttons panel.
you can use this.
jPanel.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(x, y));
jPanel.setMaximumSize(new Dimension(x, y));
jPanel.setMinimumSize(new Dimension(x, y));
So I was trying to google how to set a default size to JButtons so that they don't grow as the JFrame is resized. I didn't see a setDefaultSize method but the closest one I could find that does a similar job is setMaximumSize(). However, it doesn't seem to work in my situation and I'm guessing it's because I'm using Grid Layout for positioning my buttons in the frame, here's a small piece of my code:
rightPanel.add(ButtonA);
rightPanel.add(ButtonB);
rightPanel.add(ButtonC);
outerPanel.add(leftPanel);
outerPanel.add(rightPanel);
getContentPane().add(outerPanel);
Here's a picture of what happens:
I would also like to have my buttons in the middle of the right panel when I'm resizing (just like they are now but a lot smaller). Any idea of how I can fix this? I'm assuming that I have to use another layout or something.
Thanks
EDIT: I modified my code to use BoxLayout but it does not seem to put the buttons in the middle. The X Alignment is working but Y Alignment is not doing anything:
ButtonA.setAlignmentX(CENTER_ALIGNMENT);
ButtonA.setAlignmentY(CENTER_ALIGNMENT);
ButtonB.setAlignmentX(CENTER_ALIGNMENT);
ButtonB.setAlignmentY(CENTER_ALIGNMENT);
ButtonC.setAlignmentX(CENTER_ALIGNMENT);
ButtonC.setAlignmentY(CENTER_ALIGNMENT);
JPanel rightPanel = new JPanel();
rightPanel.setLayout(new BoxLayout(rightPanel, BoxLayout.Y_AXIS));
rightPanel.add(ButtonA);
rightPanel.add(ButtonB);
rightPanel.add(ButtonC);
outerPanel.add(leftPanel);
outerPanel.add(rightPanel);
getContentPane().add(outerPanel);
EDIT2: Fixed with vertical glue.
A GridLayout will always resize the components to fill the space available.
Try using a vertical BoxLayoutinstead. See the section from the Swing tutorial on How to Use Box Layout for more information and examples.
Encapsulate each JButton in a JPanel with a FlowLayout, and then add those FlowLayout JPanels to the rightPanel instead of the JButtons themselves. This will allow you to keep your evenly spaced buttons, but won't make them expand to take up the entire space that the parent container has available.
If you don't want them evenly spaced, but to be three consecutive buttons one after another top down, you can make the right panel have a BorderLayout, add a sub panel to the north area of the BorderLayout with the original GridLayout that the right panel had, and then add those FlowLayout panels containing the JButtons.
I'm posting this question because I'm new to programming at the present time and I have a pet peeve that when I create the app I don't want the objects to go across the entire window.
I use GridLayout the most often and I was wondering if there was a way to make components such as a JTextField or JTextArea NOT span the entire window, leave a little space on both ends?
You can add a component to a JPanel, which uses a FlowLayout by default and all components are displayed at their preferred sizes. Then add the panel to the layout using the GridLayout. The panel will increase in size but the components on the panel will stay at their preferred size.
My current problem is that I have a JFrame with a 2x2 GridLayout. And inside one of the squares, I have a JPanel that is to display a grid. I am having a field day with the java swing library... take a look
Image
Java is automatically expanding each JLabel to fit the screen. I want it to just be those blue squares (water) and the black border and not that gray space. Is there a way I can just set the size of that JPanel permanently so that I don't have to go through changing the size of the JFrame a million times before I get the exact dimension so that the gray space disappears?
I also would like to set the size of those buttons so they are not so huge (BorderLayout is being used for the buttons and TextField)
GridBagLayout is what you really want to use. The GridLayout will force the same size for each component in the layout no matter what size constraints you put on them. GridBagLayout is a lot more powerful and a lot more complicated. Study up on the API page for it. Using GridBagLayout, the components won't fill the whole grid space if you don't want them to and can even stay the size that you ask it to be. To keep a component's size from changing, I would set all three available size constraints:
water.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(20, 20));
water.setMinimumSize(new Dimension(20, 20));
water.setMaximumSize(new Dimension(20, 20));
For your buttons, I would definitely use an inner panel as Bryan mentions. You could use either a GridLayout like he suggests or a FlowLayout if you don't want all the buttons to be the same size. Add all your buttons to that inner panel instead of the main one.
If you want the two checkerboards to stay the same size, then you'll need to have them each contained in their own JPanel. Set each of those parent JPanel's to have a layout type of GridBagLayout. Set the preferedSize for each checkerboard component and then add them to their respective containers. GridBagLayout should by default lay each board out in the center of the parent JPanel. So as the window is resized, the JPanel parent area will get larger or smaller, but the checkerboard components inside will remain the same size.
Alternatively, you could have your blue squares scale to the right size as the window is resized by having each checkboard square be a JPanel with a BorderLayout layout manager and adding the JLabel (with a blue background color) to its BorderLayout.CENTER location.
As for your buttons, try something like this:
JPanel theButtonPanel = new JPanel(new BorderLayout());
JButton button1 = new JButton("Fire");
JButton button2 = new JButton("Pass");
JButton button3 = new JButton("Forfiet");
JPanel innerButtonContainer = new JPanel(new Grid(1, 3, 8, 8));
innerButtonContainer.add(button1);
innerButtonContainer.add(button2);
innerButtonContainer.add(button3);
theButtonPanel.add(innterButtonContainer);
Lastly, consider using a design tool for your Swing user interface. Netbeans has an excellent UI designer built into it. Download Netbeans here.
If you can setResizeable( false ) on the top level frame you can then set your layout manager to null and hard code each location and size via setBounds. This is how I would do it (contingent on resizing of course).
I have had success solving problems like these using TableLayout which is a third party layout manager. You will need to download it and read the tutorial but the key would be to set the justification to CENTER when adding the JButtons to their positions in the layout.