Maintaining preferred component sizes in the center of BorderLayout

Question

I have an average user interface that uses BorderLayout; the center is a tabbed panel containing various panels with different layouts, etc.

I want the panel in the center of this frame to be resized to fit the window, but I do not want the components in the panel to stretch. Labels, combo boxes, text boxes, buttons — I want them to stay at their preferred size and allow the panel that contains them to stretch. I put them in the scroll pane in case the space gets too small for the pane.

Various posters with colorful dictionaries warn of the dangers of using any of the setXXXsize () methods on components. This is what I am doing now, and I would like to know how to avoid it.

GridBagLayout is not suitable for some of my panels. It is inherently oriented around rows and columns, and not everything fits into rows and columns. Of course, I could create artificial rows and columns to fit everyone, but I really hope Swing has more layout options than this.

Vertical glue does not do this either. I included it in HFOE, my favorite SSCE:

    package example;

    import java.awt.BorderLayout;

    import javax.swing.Box;
    import javax.swing.BoxLayout;
    import javax.swing.JComboBox;
    import javax.swing.JFrame;
    import javax.swing.JLabel;
    import javax.swing.JPanel;

    public class BorderAndBox extends JFrame
    {
        public static void main(String args[])
        {
            BorderAndBox bnb = new BorderAndBox();
            bnb.createUI();
            bnb.setVisible(true);
        }

        public void createUI()
        {
            JPanel borderPanel = new JPanel(new BorderLayout());

            JLabel northLabel = new JLabel("Nawth");
            borderPanel.add(northLabel, BorderLayout.NORTH);

            String[] southComboChoices = { "one", "two", "three" };
            JComboBox southCombo = new JComboBox(southComboChoices);
            borderPanel.add(southCombo, BorderLayout.SOUTH);

            JPanel centerPanel = new JPanel();
            centerPanel.setLayout(new BoxLayout(centerPanel, BoxLayout.PAGE_AXIS));
            String[] firstChoices = { "first", "uno", "UN" };
            String[] secondChoices = { "second", "dos", "zwei" };
            String[] thirdChoices = { "third", "tres", "drei" };
            JComboBox firstCombo = new JComboBox(firstChoices);
            JComboBox secondCombo = new JComboBox(secondChoices);
            JComboBox thirdCombo = new JComboBox(thirdChoices);
            centerPanel.add(firstCombo);
            centerPanel.add(secondCombo);
            centerPanel.add(thirdCombo);
            centerPanel.add(Box.createVerticalGlue());  // first attempt; does NOT
            // take up available vertical space, instead it appears to create a space
            // that is shared equally among the (now) four components of this space.
            borderPanel.add(centerPanel, BorderLayout.CENTER);

            getContentPane().add(borderPanel);
            pack();
        }

    }

If you enlarge the window, then the drop-down brackets in the center increase; as written, the vertical piece of glue below them also increases, but does not occupy all the free space. It seems that he has been given as much space as each of them.

, ?

Answer 1

import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.GridBagLayout;

import javax.swing.Box;
import javax.swing.BoxLayout;
import javax.swing.JComboBox;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;

public class BorderAndBox extends JFrame
{
public static void main(String args[])
{
    BorderAndBox bnb = new BorderAndBox();
    bnb.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE);
    bnb.createUI();
    bnb.setVisible(true);
}

public void createUI()
{
    JPanel borderPanel = new JPanel(new BorderLayout());

    JLabel northLabel = new JLabel("Nawth");
    borderPanel.add(northLabel, BorderLayout.NORTH);

    String[] southComboChoices = { "one", "two", "three" };
    JComboBox southCombo = new JComboBox(southComboChoices);
    borderPanel.add(southCombo, BorderLayout.SOUTH);

    JPanel centerPanel = new JPanel();
    centerPanel.setLayout(new BoxLayout(centerPanel, BoxLayout.PAGE_AXIS));
    String[] firstChoices = { "first", "uno", "UN" };
    String[] secondChoices = { "second", "dos", "zwei" };
    String[] thirdChoices = { "third", "tres", "drei" };
    JComboBox firstCombo = new JComboBox(firstChoices);
    JComboBox secondCombo = new JComboBox(secondChoices);
    JComboBox thirdCombo = new JComboBox(thirdChoices);
    centerPanel.add(firstCombo);
    centerPanel.add(secondCombo);
    centerPanel.add(thirdCombo);
    centerPanel.add(Box.createVerticalGlue());  // first attempt; does NOT
    // take up available vertical space, instead it appears to create a space
    // that is shared equally among the (now) four components of this space.
    JPanel centerPanelConstrain = new JPanel(new GridBagLayout());
    centerPanelConstrain.add(centerPanel);
    borderPanel.add(centerPanelConstrain, BorderLayout.CENTER);

    getContentPane().add(borderPanel);
    pack();
}

}

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. . .

Answer 2

JPanel javax.swing.GroupLayout. , . , Netbeans Matisse Builder , , IDE.