Question

I’m working on this application and I just can’t get the GUI to display properly. I’m using FlowLayout, and everything just looks all jumbled (any other layout looks even worse). If there were just some way to add a horizontal rule between sections, that would work, but nothing I tried works.

Here is my code:

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.sql.*;
import javax.swing.*;


public class ConnectToDB implements ActionListener {
    public static void main(String[] args){

        //GUI STUFF
        //constants
        final int windowX = 640; //pixels
        final int windowY = 655; //pixels
        final int fieldX = 20;   //characters
        final FlowLayout LAYOUT_STYLE = new FlowLayout();

        //window
        JFrame window = new JFrame("Mike's MySQL GUI Client");

        //Connection Details
        JLabel enterInfo = new JLabel("Enter Connection Details: ");
        JLabel driver = new JLabel("Database Driver: ");
        JTextField driverText = new JTextField(fieldX);
        JLabel dburl = new JLabel("Database URL: ");
        JTextField dburlText = new JTextField(fieldX);
        JLabel dbuser = new JLabel("Username: ");
        JTextField dbuserText = new JTextField(fieldX);
        JLabel dbpass = new JLabel("Password: ");
        JTextField dbpassText = new JTextField(fieldX);

        //Enter a SQL Command
        JLabel enterSQL = new JLabel("Enter a SQL Command:");
        JTextArea enterSQLText = new JTextArea(10, 30);

        //Connection Status and Command Buttons
        JLabel connectionStatus = new JLabel ("No Connection Now");
        JButton connectButton = new JButton("Connect");
        JButton executeButton = new JButton("Execute SQL Command");
        JButton clearCommandButton = new JButton("Clear Command");

        //SQL Execution Result
        JLabel executionResult = new JLabel("SQL Execution Result:");
        JButton clearResultsButton = new JButton("Clear Results");
        JTextArea executionResultText = new JTextArea(20, 50);

        //Configure GUI
        window.setSize(windowX, windowY);
        window.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        driverText.setEditable(false);
        dburlText.setEditable(false);
        dbuserText.setEditable(false);
        dbpassText.setEditable(false);
        executionResultText.setEditable(false);

        //Register Event Listeners
        connectButton.addActionListener(null);
        executeButton.addActionListener(null);
        clearCommandButton.addActionListener(null);
        clearResultsButton.addActionListener(null);

        //Construct Container
        Container c = window.getContentPane();

        c.setLayout(LAYOUT_STYLE);

        c.add(enterInfo);
        c.add(driver);
        c.add(driverText);
        c.add(dburl);
        c.add(dburlText);
        c.add(dbuser);
        c.add(dbuserText);
        c.add(dbpass);
        c.add(dbpassText);
        c.add(connectionStatus);
        c.add(connectButton);
        c.add(enterSQL);
        c.add(enterSQLText);
        c.add(executeButton);
        c.add(clearCommandButton);
        c.add(new JSeparator(SwingConstants.VERTICAL));
        c.add(executionResult);
        c.add(clearResultsButton);
        c.add(executionResultText);

        window.setVisible(true);//END GUI STUFF

        //DB Connection details
        System.out.println("Attempting to connect to database...");
        Connection conn = null;
        String url = "jdbc:mysql://localhost/";
        String dbName = "project3";
        String DBdriver = "com.mysql.jdbc.Driver";
        String userName = "root"; 
        String password = "OMGnpw=-0";

        driverText.setText(DBdriver);
        dburlText.setText(url);
        dbuserText.setText(userName);
        dbpassText.setText(password);

        try 
        {
          //Connect to DB and notify user
          Class.forName(DBdriver).newInstance();
          conn = DriverManager.getConnection(url+dbName,userName,password);
          System.out.println("Connected to the database");

          /*>>>>>>Do everything you need to do while connected to DB<<<<<<*/

          //HOW TO EXECUTE A STATEMENT AND PRINT IT
          //Create a statement
          Statement statement = conn.createStatement();
          //Execute a statement
          ResultSet resultSet = statement.executeQuery("SELECT * FROM riders");
          //Process query results
          ResultSetMetaData metaData = resultSet.getMetaData();
          int numberOfColumns = metaData.getColumnCount();

          for(int i = 1; i<= numberOfColumns; i++){
              System.out.printf("%20s\t", metaData.getColumnName(i));
          }
          System.out.println();

          while (resultSet.next()){
              for (int i = 1; i <= numberOfColumns; i++){
                  System.out.printf("%20s\t", resultSet.getObject(i));
              }
              System.out.println();
          }
          /*>>>>>>Finish DB activities<<<<<<*/

          //Disconnect from DB
          conn.close(); 
          System.out.printf("Disconnected from database");
        } 
        catch (Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e){
        System.out.println("Button Works!");
    }
}

I may need to use a different layout, but FlowLayout is the only one I’m familiar with. Can anyone suggest an easy fix?

Answer 1

Try a box layout. And add some panels to it. Make the panels flow layout and put a pair of label and textfield in each panel

|-----container with box layout-----|
panel[[flow]label texfield] 
panel[[flow]label texfield] 
panel[[flow]label texfield] 
panel[[flow]label texfield] 
panel[[flow]label texfield] 
panel[[flow]sqltextfields] 
panel[[flow]buttons] 
|-----------------------------------|

and near the bottom put your sql textfields and buttons

http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/layout/box.html