Question

I am trying to create a JScrollPane that contains a JPanel that will be increasing and decreasing in height. When it becomes larger than the size of the JScrollPane, it should create a vertical scroll bar which will allow me to scroll through the entire JPanel. However, I am having difficulty achieving this. Yes, I know I am not using LayoutManagers. No, I will not be using them, and I need a solution that does not involve their usage.

Here are the two button’s AbstractActions that add and subtract from the JPanel:

class AddACT extends AbstractAction
    {
      public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
      {
        info.setSize(420,info.getHeight() + 40);
        info.add(new SubPanel); // Adds another JPanel into the main JPanel (for content input)
        gui.repaint();
        infoS.validate();
      }
    }

class RemoveACT extends AbstractAction
    {
      public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
      {
        info.remove(subPanel()); // This would remove the last JPanel added to the main JPanel
        info.setSize(420,info.getHeight() - 40);
        gui.repaint();
        infoS.validate();
      }

And here is the code for the main JPanel and the JScrollPane:

final JPanel info = new JPanel();
final JScrollPane infoS = new JScrollPane(info, ScrollPaneConstants.VERTICAL_SCROLLBAR_ALWAYS, ScrollPaneConstants.HORIZONTAL_SCROLLBAR_NEVER);  
info.setLayout(null);
info.setSize(420,600);
infoS.setLocation(10,80);
infoS.setSize(420,490);
gui.add(infoS); // gui is the frame's content pane (the overall JPanel)

This is the second project I’ve been trying to learn GUI by doing. I am a complete novice in Swing and am only intermediate in Java. Sorry if I am making a blindingly obvious mistake.

Answer 1

1) Use LayoutManagers (+1 to @kleopatra and @GagandeepBali comments)

The absence of LayoutManagers only guarantees your GUI’s will look very trashy (especially when run on other OSes/builds) and being a Novice you should rather learn the correct way than learn the wrong way and get into bad habits like calling setSize() etc.

Have a read on these links to get you started:

• A Visual Guide to Layout Managers
• Concurrency in Swing

2) See this example for how to use a JScrollPane, it simply adds a JPanel with buttons to a JScrollPane which in-turn is added to the JFrame.

3) Also see this example for how to make the JScrollPane vertically scroll-able only.

4) For more on JScrollPanes have a look here: How to Use Scroll Panes.

5) As for how it interacts with LayoutManager, if you do not explicitly set its size via setPreferredSize(Dimension d) the scroll pane computes it based on the preferred size of its nine components (the viewport, and, if present, the two scroll bars, the row and column headers, and the four corners)

6) On your usage of validate():

• validate() is used when new JComponents are added to a visible component

• revalidate() is used when JComponent is removed/added from a visible component

• revalidate() covers validate() too

Thus always use this:

//add or remove component(s)
revalidate();
repaint();

References:

• http://www.daniweb.com/software-development/java/threads/405568/validate-vs-revalidate