CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaswinglayout-manager
anon
anon

Reputation:

How to make this layout with Java swing?

I have the following layout:

enter image description here

The red, blue and green parts are JPanel. In the red part I have four JLabel. Now if I resize the JFrame, the title labels always stay in the center. But I would prefer if they are evenly distributed horizontaly in the red part. Which layout should I use for that?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 2412

Answers (7)

Jonas
Jonas

Reputation: 128827

  • Use a BorderLayout for the main frame and use the NORTH, CENTER and SOUTH places.
  • To create empty space like in the bottom panel, use Box.createVerticalStrut(size).
  • Use BoxLayout to place the labels packed in a row.
  • Finally use GridBagLayout to center a panel in another Panel.

Here is a short example:

enter image description here

import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.GridBagLayout;

import javax.swing.BorderFactory;
import javax.swing.Box;
import javax.swing.BoxLayout;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;

public class Prototype extends JFrame {

    public Prototype() {

        JPanel labelPanel = new JPanel();
        labelPanel.setLayout(new BoxLayout(labelPanel, BoxLayout.LINE_AXIS));
        labelPanel.add(new JLabel("First"));
        labelPanel.add(Box.createHorizontalStrut(10));
        labelPanel.add(new JLabel("Second"));
        labelPanel.setBorder(BorderFactory.createEmptyBorder(4, 4, 4, 4));
        labelPanel.setOpaque(false);

        JPanel bottomPanel = new JPanel();
        bottomPanel.add(Box.createVerticalStrut(15));
        bottomPanel.setBackground(Color.GREEN);

        JPanel centerPanel = new JPanel();
        centerPanel.add(Box.createRigidArea(new Dimension(200, 300)));
        centerPanel.setBackground(Color.BLUE);

        JPanel northPanel = new JPanel(new GridBagLayout());
        northPanel.add(labelPanel);
        northPanel.setBackground(Color.RED);

        JPanel panel = new JPanel(new BorderLayout());
        panel.add(northPanel, BorderLayout.NORTH);
        panel.add(centerPanel, BorderLayout.CENTER);
        panel.add(bottomPanel, BorderLayout.SOUTH);

        add(panel);
        pack();
        setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        setVisible(true);
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        new Prototype();
    }

}

Upvotes: 3

JB Nizet
JB Nizet

Reputation: 691735

Use a BorderLayout for the frame's content pane, and use a GridLayout with 1 row and four columns for the title panel.

See http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/layout/border.html and http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/layout/grid.html for tutorials.

If you don't want the same width assigned to each label, but in fact want the same space between every label, you may also use a BoxLayout, and add a glue between each label (and between the border of the panel and the label:

p.setLayout(new BoxLayout(p, BoxLayout.X_AXIS));
p.add(Box.createHorizontalGlue());
p.add(new JLabel("Label"));
p.add(Box.createHorizontalGlue());
p.add(new JLabel("Long Label"));
p.add(Box.createHorizontalGlue());
p.add(new JLabel("Very long Label"));
p.add(Box.createHorizontalGlue());
p.add(new JLabel("Extremely long Label"));
p.add(Box.createHorizontalGlue());

Upvotes: 4

Hovercraft Full Of Eels
Hovercraft Full Of Eels

Reputation: 285403

Use a GridLayout(1, 0) for the top JPanel. The two numbers means 1 row and variable number of columns. If you are using JLabels, this will be sufficient, especially if you set the JLabels alignment constant to SwingConstants.CENTER. If you are using components that fill the grid slots, such as JButtons, then you may need to use other variants of the GridLayout constructor, such as GridLayout(1, 0, ?, 0) Where the ? is a number that tells the GridLayout how much horizontal separation there should be between slots.

The overall GUI would use a BorderLayout of course.

For more and better information on this, please check out Lesson: Laying Out Components Within a Container and A Visual Guide to Layout Managers

For example:

import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.GridLayout;

import javax.swing.*;

public class LayoutEg {

   private static void createAndShowGui() {
      String[] labelStrings = {"One", "Two", "Three", "Four"};
      JPanel topPanel = new JPanel(new GridLayout(1, 0));
      for (String labelString : labelStrings) {
         // create labels and center the text
         topPanel.add(new JLabel(labelString, SwingConstants.CENTER)); 
      }
      topPanel.setBackground(Color.red);

      JPanel centerPanel = new JPanel();
      centerPanel.setBackground(Color.blue);

      // setting preferred size for demonstration purposes only
      centerPanel.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(700, 400));

      JPanel bottomPanel = new JPanel();
      bottomPanel.setBackground(Color.green);

      // main panel uses BorderLayout
      JPanel mainPanel = new JPanel(new BorderLayout());
      mainPanel.add(centerPanel, BorderLayout.CENTER);
      mainPanel.add(topPanel, BorderLayout.PAGE_START);
      mainPanel.add(bottomPanel, BorderLayout.PAGE_END);


      JFrame frame = new JFrame("LayoutEg");
      frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
      frame.getContentPane().add(mainPanel);
      frame.pack();
      frame.setLocationByPlatform(true);
      frame.setVisible(true);
   }

   public static void main(String[] args) {
      SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
         public void run() {
            createAndShowGui();
         }
      });
   }
}

Upvotes: 6

Dogmatixed
Dogmatixed

Reputation: 794

Use a MigLayout.

No, seriously, I used to go crazy trying to get Java layouts working. Then I started maintaining some software that uses MigLayouts, and after a week or so I could do anything I wanted. There is an excellent cheat sheet that looks pretty intimidating, but it's incredibly helpful.

With a MigLayout, to have evenly spread labels in a JPanel you would:

// the "fillx" means that the layout will expand to take up all available horizontal space
JPanel panel = new JPanel(new Miglayout("fillx"));

// the "growx" means that the component will expand to take up all available horizontal space
add(new JLabel("Work items"), "growx");
add(new JLabel("Change set"), "growx");
add(new JLabel("Files"), "growx");
add(new JLabel("Source code"), "growx");

Upvotes: 2

Johnbabu Koppolu
Johnbabu Koppolu

Reputation: 3252

For labels to be distributed evenly horizantally - in the red panel - use BoxLayout with X_AXIS direction and put 'glue' between each label - More here -

http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/layout/box.html

Upvotes: 0

Chip McCormick
Chip McCormick

Reputation: 744

GridBagLayout is one approach. Set the weightx value to 1.0.

Upvotes: 0

user1078803
user1078803

Reputation:

gridLayout, put the labels into the grid layout and set rows to 1 and columns to 4 (1 row for each Label)

http://www.javabeginner.com/java-swing/java-gridlayout-class-example

Upvotes: 1

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