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Change JTextField height on Swing

I'm trying to fix the height of the "amountField" text field, but I can't.
I would like the height of amountField to have the same height as the JComboBox that it's above, so it looks better.
Right now, the JTextField looks very tall compared with the rest of design.
I've tried everything that I've read in this forum, but nothing seems to work.
I don't know if it's relevant, but this whole JPanel (WithdrawalScreen) is inside another JPanel with BorderLayout. This panel is the center part of it
Thanks
PictureHere
public class WithdrawalScreen extends JPanel {
Public JPanel init() {
this.setLayout(new GridLayout(0,1));
account = new JLabel("account");
accountSelect = new JComboBox(labels);
amount = new JLabel("amount");
amountField = new JTextField("");
submit = new JButton("SUBMIT");
this.add(account);
this.add(accountSelect);
this.add(amount);
this.add(amountField);
this.add(submit);
return this;
}
}

Try creating the Grid Layout with 5 rows and 1 column. I think the height is messed up because you are not setting the constructor arguments properly.
new GridLayout(5,1);

Grid layout will stretch the component and give the same size to all of its components. In order to keep the "default" size of each component, you can use BoxLayout with BoxLayout.Y_AXIS parameter in its constructor. Another way would be to use a dummy-nested JPanel with another layout. Let's say FlowLayout.
JTextField textField = new JTextField(10);
JPanel nestedPanel = new JPanel(new FlowLayout());
nestedPanel.add(textField);
gridLayoutPanel.add(nestedPanel);
JTextField will not be stretched. nestedPanel will be. Do some experiments yourself and you will find the way that fits your needs.
A link that will help you: A visoual guide to Layout Managers.

Change the way JRadioButtons displayed on JPanel [duplicate]

This question already has an answer here:
How can I use BoxLayout to do this?
(1 answer)
Closed 9 years ago.
I have a JPanel, and I want to add JRadioButtons to it, this is the code I tried :
private void populateQuestionnaire(Question question){
buttonGroup = new ButtonGroup();
for(Choix c : question.getListChoix()) {
radioButton = new JRadioButton(c.getChoixLibelle());
buttonGroup.add(radioButton);
jPanel1.add(radioButton);
}
jPanel1.revalidate();
jPanel1.repaint();
}
And I have the layout of JPanel is FlowLayout.
This is how the JRadioButtons displayed :
I want JRadioButtons to be added one below the other and to be centered in the JPanel.

Instead of using a FlowLayout, which lays out items left to right and wraps appropriately, you can use a BoxLayout, which allows you to specify laying out items either horizontally or vertically.
You can set the LayoutManager for your JPanel at construction:
JPanel jpanel1 = new JPanel(new BoxLayout(parentComponent, BoxLayout.Y_AXIS));

BoxLayout is great for stacking elements on top of each other. Consider this code:
public class MyFrame extends JFrame {
public MyFrame() {
ButtonGroup bg = new ButtonGroup();
JRadioButton b1 = new JRadioButton("My Button 1");
JRadioButton b2 = new JRadioButton("My Button 2");
bg.add(b1);
bg.add(b2);
BoxLayout bl = new BoxLayout(this.getContentPane(), BoxLayout.Y_AXIS);
this.setLayout(bl);
b1.setAlignmentX(CENTER_ALIGNMENT);
b2.setAlignmentX(CENTER_ALIGNMENT);
this.add(b1);
this.add(b2);
}
}
Which makes, when instantiated and shown, the following window:
Now let's look at how this code works:
Consider this code:
ButtonGroup bg = new ButtonGroup();
JRadioButton b1 = new JRadioButton("My Button 1");
JRadioButton b2 = new JRadioButton("My Button 2");
bg.add(b1);
bg.add(b2);
This code does the same thing you were doing before, only a little simpler for example's sake. It creates a button group and two JRadioButtons, then adds the buttons to the button group. Now here is when it gets interesting.
Next, consider this code:
BoxLayout bl = new BoxLayout(this.getContentPane(), BoxLayout.Y_AXIS);
this.setLayout(bl);
The first line creates a new BoxLayout with the following parameters:
1 The container which it is laying out. (It needs this because it can't be shared.)
2 The axis which it should be laying out components. (You want Y-AXIS for your case.)
The second line set's the JFrame's contentPane's layout to the BoxLayout you just created.
Finally, consider this code:
b1.setAlignmentX(CENTER_ALIGNMENT);
b2.setAlignmentX(CENTER_ALIGNMENT);
this.add(b1);
this.add(b2);
This sets the alignment of the two radio buttons so that their centers will be aligned to each other and to the center of the frame. Then it adds them to the frame's content pane.
Hope this helped!
Note: The reason I used this.getContentPane() while constructing the BoxLayout instead of just using this is because when working with JFrames commands like add() and setLayout() get redirected to the frame's content pane. So if we were to use this in the constructor, when we called this.setLayout(bl) we really would be calling this.getContentPane().setLayout(bl). But, we just told the BoxLayout it'll be laying out the frame, not it's content pane, so you'll get an exception saying that the BoxLayout can't be shared. To correct the error, we just need to realise that we are actually working with the content pane through the frame's methods, and update the BoxLayout's constructor accordingly to let it know what it really is laying out.

How to improve GUI by changing BoxLayout into a different LayoutManager?

I've a big problem with Swing in Java, I used BoxLayout for this but still it looks bad.
Any suggestions about my usage of layouts, or how to change it to look like in assumptions? (here are assumptions)
Container main = new Container();
Container left = new Container();// here goin buttons
Container right = new Container(); // here goin tabs + more buttons, textfields and other stuff
BoxLayout lewyL = new BoxLayout(left, BoxLayout.Y_AXIS);
left.setLayout(lewyL);
left.add(rastrowa); //radiobutton
left.add(wektorowa);//radiobutton
left.add(apDwuliniowa);//checkbox
left.add(wczytaj);//button
left.add(zapisz);//obutton
left.add(wyczysc);//button
BoxLayout prawyL = new BoxLayout(right, BoxLayout.Y_AXIS);
right.setLayout(prawyL);
right.add(zakladki);// tabs (mostly i use BoxLayout but for last one i need something more "complicated")
EDIT: I almost solve this problem, I need to move all elements to left (how it look like)but I have no idea how ;/ Here is constructor of this class.
JLabel label = new JLabel("O wektor");
JLabel labelA = new JLabel("a:");
JLabel labelB = new JLabel("b:");
JButton wykonaj = new JButton("Wykonaj");
JTextField a = new JTextField(5);
JTextField b = new JTextField(5);
add(label);
add(labelA);
add(a);
add(labelB);
add(b);
add(wykonaj);

There's nothing wrong with the way it looks (in my opinion), but if you want it to look a little better, why don't you convert the left panel (which is 6x1) into a 3x2 panel, with the checkboxes/radiobuttons on the left, and buttons on the right? Sounds like a job for GridLayout - one of my favorite classes...
JPanel leftPanel = new JPanel(new GridLayout(3,2));
leftPanel.add(rastrowa); //radiobutton
leftPanel.add(wczytaj); //button
leftPanel.add(wektorowa); //radiobutton
leftPanel.add(zapisz); //obutton
leftPanel.add(apDwuliniowa); //checkbox
leftPanel.add(wyczysc); //button
Note that the 3,2 defines the number of rows,columns. When adding panels, they are added to the grid from left-to-right, and top-to-bottom. GridLayout also auto-sizes the components, so all the buttons etc will be the same width and height, making it look more consistent.
The GridLayout documentation might be useful, and the Visual Guide to Layout Managers is a great place to see other layout managers that might work better for your different situations. I personally find BorderLayout and GridLayout to be the most useful, and cover about 95% of the situations I ever need for my GUIs.

java BoxLayout panel's alignment

I have browsed around and haven't found a solution that specifically tailors to my situation. I have a panel that I display in a dialog box:
//create dialog panel
JPanel panel = new JPanel();
panel.setLayout(new BoxLayout(panel, BoxLayout.Y_AXIS));
panel.add(headerPanel);
panel.add(type1Panel);
panel.add(type2Panel);
panel.add(type3Panel);
panel.add(type4Panel);
panel.add(type5Panel);
panel.add(type6Panel);
int result = JOptionPane.showConfirmDialog(null, panel, "Please enter values.", JOptionPane.OK_CANCEL_OPTION);
The size of the last two panels, type5 & type6, are of equal size so they look fine. However, the header and first 4 panels are of different sizes and I would like them all to be left aligned. As of yet I haven't found a good solution as how to fix this.
Question is, how can I left align the first 5 panels, but not last 2? If not how can I left align them all? The setalignmentx() isn't available for panels. I've tried using GridLayout, but then the width of the gui's main window is rather large and doesn't fit nicely onto the screen, hence the BoxLayout along Y axis.Thanks for any help or suggestions.

Here is an example that will left align all the JPanels added to the panel used as a container.
JPanel a = new JPanel();
JPanel b = new JPanel();
JPanel c = new JPanel();
a.setBackground( Color.RED );
b.setBackground( Color.GREEN );
c.setBackground( Color.BLUE );
a.setMaximumSize( new Dimension( 10, 10) );
b.setMaximumSize( new Dimension( 50, 10) );
a.setAlignmentX( Component.LEFT_ALIGNMENT );//0.0
b.setAlignmentX( Component.LEFT_ALIGNMENT );//0.0
c.setAlignmentX( Component.LEFT_ALIGNMENT );//0.0
JPanel panel = new JPanel();
panel.setLayout(new BoxLayout(panel, BoxLayout.Y_AXIS));
panel.add(a);
panel.add(b);
panel.add(c);
int result = JOptionPane.showConfirmDialog(null, panel, "Please enter values.", JOptionPane.OK_CANCEL_OPTION);

Create a horizontal javax.swing.Box object to contain each typenPanel object. Using horizontal struts and glue you can do whatever you want:
Box b1 = Box.createHorizontalBox();
b1.add( type1Panel );
b1.add( Box.createHorizontalGlue() );
panel.add( b1 );
For simplicity, write a helper method to do this for you:
private Component leftJustify( JPanel panel ) {
Box b = Box.createHorizontalBox();
b.add( panel );
b.add( Box.createHorizontalGlue() );
// (Note that you could throw a lot more components
// and struts and glue in here.)
return b;
}
Then:
panel.add( leftJustify( headerPanel ) );
panel.add( leftJustify( type1Panel ) );
panel.add( leftJustify( type2Panel ) );
etc.... You can get fancier with each line, adding components, glue, and struts. I've had great luck deeply nesting vertical and horizontal boxes, and writing helper methods when I want to do the same layout in a box more than once. There's no limits to what you can do, mixing components, struts, and glue as necessary.
I'm sure there's a better way to do all this, but I haven't found it yet. And the dynamic resizing lets a user with short bits of text use a small window and a user with lots of text resize it so it all fits.

You should use setAlignmentX on the panels because it is available for JPanel. The methods setAlignmentX and setAlignmentY are found in JComponent, which JPanel extends. It works...I've got code that uses those methods to align JPanels in a BoxLayout.
Ok, fine, edit your question while I'm answering it :)
Instead of using a JPanel try using a Box. I've found the Box class to be very useful as a container. From the API:
A lightweight container that uses a BoxLayout object as its layout
manager. Box provides several class methods that are useful for
containers using BoxLayout -- even non-Box containers.
If you haven't seen it yet, the tutorial How to Use BoxLayout is very helpful.

Placing JTextFields in a JFrame of a Java GUI

I have:
public class BaseStationFrame1 extends JFrame
{
JButton activateButton;
JButton deactivateButton;
BaseStation bs;
JTextField networkIdField;
JTextField portField;
public BaseStationFrame1(BaseStation _bs){
bs = _bs;
setTitle("Base Station");
setSize(600,500);
setLocation(100,200);
setVisible(true);
activateButton = new JButton("Activate");
deactivateButton = new JButton("Deactivate");
Container content = this.getContentPane();
content.setBackground(Color.white);
content.setLayout(new FlowLayout());
content.add(activateButton);
content.add(deactivateButton);
networkIdField = new JTextField("networkId : "+ bs.getNetworkId());
networkIdField.setEditable(false);
content.add(networkIdField);
portField = new JTextField("portId : "+ bs.getPort());
portField.setEditable(false);
content.add(portField);}
}
My problem is that i don't want the two TextFields to appear on the right of Activate and Deactivate buttons but below them. How can i fix that?

Specify your layout manager, like this:
content.setLayout(new GridLayout(2,2));
That would use the Grid Layout Manager to establish a grid with 2 columns and 2 rows, that your components would then be placed in.
The layout manager you are currently using, FlowLayout, only adds contents onto the end of the current row. it will wrap around once it reaches the constrained edge of the pane, though.
You should also check the other layout managers here
You could alternatively use GridBagLayout , but you will have to specify a GridBagConstraints object you then add alongside the individual elements, like so:
content.add(networkIdField, gridConstraints);
see more on that in the linked tutorial.

can I suggest that you use a Null Layout for the parent component?
setLayout(null);
then use a setBounds(xPos,yPos, Width, Height);
to position the components on the panel etc?
Doing this will prevent Java's UI Manager to manage the components to the Frame, Panel etc.
That seems to be the easiest and less painful way.
Regards