Question

would this put the two JPanels inside the JFrame or would I need to make a container of some sort?

I am just trying to get the JTextField to take up only 1 column above the buttons instead of being put in the column with all the buttons.

    window = new JFrame("Window");

    displayBox = new JTextField(20);
    display = new JPanel(new GridLayout(0, 1));

    buttons = new JPanel(new GridLayout(0, 3));
    b0 = new JButton("0");
    b1 = new JButton("1");
    //...

    window.getContentPane().add(display);
    display.add(displayBox);

    window.getContentPane().add(buttons);
    buttons.add(b0);
    buttons.add(b1);
    //...

    window.pack();
    window.setSize(300, 400);
    window.setVisible(true);
    window.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);

Answer 1

if you change the code to

window = new JFrame("Window");
window.setLayout(new BoxLayout(window.getContentPane(), BoxLayout.PAGE_AXIS));
window.add(Box.createVerticalGlue());
window.add(Box.createHorizontalGlue());

displayBox = new JTextField(20);
display = new JPanel();

buttons = new JPanel();
buttons.setLayout(new GridLayout(0, 3));

b0 = new JButton("0");
b1 = new JButton("1");
//...

window.getContentPane().add(display);
display.add(displayBox);

window.getContentPane().add(buttons);
buttons.add(b0);
buttons.add(b1);
//...

window.pack();
window.setSize(300, 400);
window.setVisible(true);
window.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);

that should add the JPanels into the JFrame 1 ontop of the other.