Question

I am coding a custom JPanel, call it MyPanel, by hand which contains two JLabels and two JTextBoxes. This JPanel will be used in a JFrame which contains other JPanels using a CardLayout. The JFrame is non-resizeable; its size is fixed based on the JPanel which has the most components.

Since MyPanel is sparse on controls, I am trying to figure out the best layout manager to use. I want the labels and text fields to appear close to the top with all the extra space at the bottom. I believe GridBagLayout provides the functionality to get this panel to look the way I want. MyPanel has the following initComponents() method which is called from the constructor:

public class MyPanel extends JPanel {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        JFrame frame = new JFrame("MyPanel Test");
        frame.add(new MyPanel(null));
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        frame.setSize(400, 425);
        frame.setVisible(true);
    }

    public MyPanel() {
        initComponents();
    }

    private void initComponents() {
        this.setLayout(new GridBagLayout());

        JLabel cardYearLabel = new JLabel("Card Year:");
        cardYearLabel.setFont(new Font("Tahoma", 0, 14)); // NOI18N

        GridBagConstraints yearLabelConstraints = new GridBagConstraints();
        yearLabelConstraints.gridx = 0;
        yearLabelConstraints.gridy = 0;
        yearLabelConstraints.weightx = 1;
        yearLabelConstraints.weighty = 1;
        yearLabelConstraints.anchor = GridBagConstraints.WEST;
        yearLabelConstraints.insets = new Insets(20, 50, 10, 10);
        this.add(cardYearLabel, yearLabelConstraints);

        this.yearTextField = new JFormattedTextField();
        this.yearTextField.setFormatterFactory(new DefaultFormatterFactory(new NumberFormatter(new DecimalFormat("#0"))));
        this.yearTextField.setFont(new Font("Tahoma", 0, 14)); // NOI18N
        this.yearTextField.setColumns(10);
        this.yearTextField.addFocusListener(new UpdateInstructionsFocusListener("Enter card year."));

        GridBagConstraints yearTextFieldConstraints = new GridBagConstraints();
        yearTextFieldConstraints.gridx = 1;
        yearTextFieldConstraints.gridy = 0;
        yearTextFieldConstraints.weightx = 2;
        yearTextFieldConstraints.weighty = 1;
        yearTextFieldConstraints.fill = GridBagConstraints.HORIZONTAL;
        yearTextFieldConstraints.insets = new Insets(20, 10, 10, 50);
        this.add(this.yearTextField, yearTextFieldConstraints);

        JLabel cardNumberLabel = new JLabel("Card Number:");
        cardNumberLabel.setFont(new Font("Tahoma", 0, 14)); // NOI18N

        GridBagConstraints numberLabelConstraints = new GridBagConstraints();
        numberLabelConstraints.gridx = 0;
        numberLabelConstraints.gridy = 1;
        numberLabelConstraints.weightx = 1;
        numberLabelConstraints.weighty = 1;
        numberLabelConstraints.anchor = GridBagConstraints.WEST;
        numberLabelConstraints.insets = new Insets(10, 50, 0, 10);
        this.add(cardNumberLabel, numberLabelConstraints);

        this.numberTextField = new JFormattedTextField();
        this.numberTextField.setFormatterFactory(new DefaultFormatterFactory(new NumberFormatter(new DecimalFormat("#0"))));
        this.numberTextField.setFont(new Font("Tahoma", 0, 14)); // NOI18N
        this.numberTextField.setColumns(10);
        this.numberTextField.addFocusListener(new UpdateInstructionsFocusListener("Enter card number."));

        GridBagConstraints numberTextFieldConstraints = new GridBagConstraints();
        numberTextFieldConstraints.gridx = 1;
        numberTextFieldConstraints.gridy = 1;
        numberTextFieldConstraints.weightx = 2;
        numberTextFieldConstraints.weighty = 1;
        numberTextFieldConstraints.fill = GridBagConstraints.HORIZONTAL;
        numberTextFieldConstraints.insets = new Insets(10, 10, 0, 50);
        this.add(this.numberTextField, numberTextFieldConstraints);

        JPanel filler = new JPanel();
        GridBagConstraints fillerConstraints = new GridBagConstraints();
        fillerConstraints.gridx = 0;
        fillerConstraints.gridy = 2;
        fillerConstraints.gridwidth = 2;
        fillerConstraints.weightx = 1;
        fillerConstraints.weighty = 100;
        this.add(filler, fillerConstraints);
    }
}

I cringe at using a blank JPanel to fill up the empty space at the bottom of MyPanel. Is there a better, more elegant way to do this? (I’m not stuck on using GridBagLayout. If another standard LayoutManager can do this, I’m all for it.)

Answer 1

One way to achieve this is to put the controls in a panel, then add that panel to the PAGE_START of a 2nd panel with a BorderLayout.