Question

We have a panel which displays a form with an arbitrary number of JTextFields, JComboBoxes and JTextAreas (each with a corresponding JLabel).

The current code uses a GridBagLayout but I’d like to know if there is already a layout for this kind of task (playing with WrapLayout at the moment but aligning the fields seems tricky).

Is there any layouts particularly for this or am I best just sticking with the lovely GridBagLayout code we already have?

Answer 1

I would almost always recommend the JGoodies FormLayout as layout when you create a form. The documentation contains an example of a layout with a dynamic number of components (code snippet 6, which I copy-paste here to give you an idea)

FormLayout layout = new FormLayout(
“right:max(40dlu;p), 4dlu, 80dlu, 7dlu, ” // 1st major column
+ “right:max(40dlu;p), 4dlu, 80dlu”, // 2nd major column
“”); // add rows dynamically
DefaultFormBuilder builder = new DefaultFormBuilder(layout);
builder.setDefaultDialogBorder();
builder.appendSeparator(“Segment”);
builder.append(“Identifier”, idField);
builder.nextLine();
builder.append(“PTI [kW]”, ptiField);
builder.append(“Power [kW]”, powerField);
builder.append(“len [mm]”, lenField);
builder.nextLine();
builder.appendSeparator(“Diameters”);
builder.append(“da [mm]”, daField);
builder.append(“di [mm]”, diField);
builder.append(“da2 [mm]”, da2Field);
builder.append(“di2 [mm]”, di2Field);
builder.append(“R [mm]”, rField);
builder.append(“D [mm]”, dField);

They have a demo available through Java web start