Question

I have several JPanels with which contain JLabels and JTextFields for user input in my Swing application.

I am hand-editing the code generated by the NetBeans GUI Builder, but still want to maintain a similar layout.

I started by using a GridLayout. I can tweak the hgap to make my JLabels and JTextFields the right size, but I will have to do this individually for all of the JPanels.

Is there a standard LayoutManager which will calculate the correct height of a text component based on the component’s font size and pad the containing component with space in between and/or around the text components?

Edit:

As requested, here is an SSCCE to demonstrate what I am trying to do

GridLayoutSSCCE:

package gridlayoutsscce;

import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;

public class GridLayoutSSCCE {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {

            @Override
            public void run() {
                JFrame f = new JFrame("Grid Layout SSCCE");
                f.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
                f.add(new GridLayoutSSCCEPanel());
                f.pack();
                f.setVisible(true);
            }
        });
    }
}

GridLayoutSSCCEPanel:

package gridlayoutsscce;

import java.awt.GridLayout;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JTextField;

class GridLayoutSSCCEPanel extends JPanel {
    public GridLayoutSSCCEPanel() {
        this.setLayout(new GridLayout(2, 2));
        this.add(new JLabel("Label 1:"));
        this.add(new JTextField());

        this.add(new JLabel("Label 2:"));
        this.add(new JTextField());
    }
}

This looks fine when I first run the program. However, when I resize the window, the text fields stretch out so each fills half of the height of the window. I want them to remain the same height that they were originally when the window resizes.

Answer 1

GridBagLayout will do what you want, although it is highly flexible, it also consider one of the most complex.

I’m sure MigLayout will get a mention, but I’ve never personally used it, and I should also mention JGoodies FormLayout, but again, I’ve never used it.