Question

I’m making a simple address book GUI and I don’t have a very good grasp of layouts. I want my GUI to look like this…

Here is my DRIVER:

   import javax.swing.*;



public class AddressBookGui {
    public static void main (String[] args)
    {
        userInput addressBook = new userInput();
        addressBook.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE); //whenever you hit x you will exit the program
        addressBook.setSize(750, 600);
        addressBook.setVisible(true);





    }


}

This is my USERINPUT class

    import java.awt.*;


import javax.swing.*;




public class userInput extends JFrame {


    private JButton newEntry;
    private JButton deleteEntry;
    private JButton editEntry;
    private JButton saveEntry;
    private JButton cancelEntry;
    private FlowLayout layout;

    private JTextField lastName;
    private JTextField middleName;
    private JTextField firstName;
    private JTextField phone;




    public userInput() {

        super("My Address Book"); //sets the title!

        Container content = getContentPane();
        JPanel buttonPanel = new JPanel();
        buttonPanel.setLayout(new FlowLayout());

        newEntry = new JButton("New");
        deleteEntry = new JButton("Delete");
        editEntry = new JButton("Edit");
        saveEntry = new JButton("Save");
        cancelEntry = new JButton("Cancel");

        buttonPanel.add(newEntry);
        buttonPanel.add(deleteEntry);
        buttonPanel.add(editEntry);
        buttonPanel.add(saveEntry);
        buttonPanel.add(cancelEntry);

        add(buttonPanel, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
        content.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
        content.add(buttonPanel, "South");

        lastName = new JTextField(10); //set the length to 10.
        add(lastName); //adds item1 to the window

        firstName = new JTextField(10);
        add(firstName);

        middleName = new JTextField(10);
        add(middleName);

        phone = new JTextField(10);
        add(phone);

        setVisible(true);





    }
}

Currently I have the buttons at the bottom, but the GUI is just one giant text box. Thanks for the help.

Answer 1

You need another JPanel to place your labels and text fields.

   labelPanel = new JPanel();
   labelPanel.add(lastName);
   //etc

   add(labelPanel, BorderLayout.CENTER);

You may use a more advanced layout manager like GridBagLayout for the panel to organize the components properly.