Question

I have a JFrame window, and I’d like to add a scrollable JTable towards the middle of it. I have a method, called collectionTableScrollPane() that generates the JScrollPane (and I know this is guaranteed to work).

I then proceed to add it to my mainPanel panel. However, I’d like there to be some forced 30px padding on the left and right of the JScrollPane. Logically, I would create a holding JPanel with a centred FlowLayout, and add Box.createHorizontalStrut(30) either side of the JScrollPane.

JPanel tableHolderPanel = new JPanel(new FlowLayout());
mainPanel.add(tableHolderPanel);
tableHolderPanel.add(Box.createHorizontalStrut(30));
tableHolderPanel.add(collectionTableScrollPane());
tableHolderPanel.add(Box.createHorizontalStrut(30));

However, I’m getting a strange result, where the JScrollPane in the middle of the window (denoted by the arrows) sort of becomes ineffectual.

Does anyone know what the problem is?

Note that the JTable contains four rows, of which only two are visible.

Answer 1

I had some issues in the past when i used a JScrollPane inside a panel with a FlowLayout. The behaviour could be tricky, when the content grow, the horizontal scrollbar may appear or the FlowLayout should add a new line.

In your case, i will replace the FlowLayout by a BorderLayout :

JPanel tableHolderPanel = new JPanel(new BorderLayout());
mainPanel.add(tableHolderPanel);
tableHolderPanel.add(Box.createHorizontalStrut(30), BorderLayout.WEST);
tableHolderPanel.add(collectionTableScrollPane(), BorderLayout.CENTER);
tableHolderPanel.add(Box.createHorizontalStrut(30), BorderLayout.EAST);