As I understand it, the normal FlowLayout only uses the preferredSize to determine the width and heigt of a component and draws it exactly in these dimensions.
Now I'd like its components so stretch, when space is available and break to a new line, when all the components minimumSizes are reached.
Here is an example:
Red and Green are my components. These have a minimumSize of 100 (symbolized by the yellow line). They are placed in a Layout which is symbolized by the blue background. This is a big JFrame.
I then make my JFrame smaller until I reach the minimumSizes of the components. This JFrame is just big enough.
When I make my JFrame even smaller, the FlowLayout should break into a new line. The JFrame is now smaller than the components minimum sizes.
Is there a LayoutManager in swing who can do that?
Related
I have a set of JPanel's within a JFrame. One of the panels contains a JTextArea. At the moment I create this like so:
JTextArea = new JTextArea(5, 40);
And this gives me a text area which is 5 rows by (roughly) 40 columns.
Vertically this works as I'd like it to, the area fills the entire height of the parent container - probably because the parent is the only element positioned in that row.
Horizontally the parent width is determined by elements underneath and it is (usually) wider than the JTextArea is. So I end up with a text area with large margins on either side. What is worse, when I resize the frame smaller to the point where the text area is exactly the width of the parent container, it suddenly 'flicks' and changes into a text area that is 1 row high and is then the width of the parent.
Excuse the crude drawing below which hopefully illustrates the issue.
In short: How to I create a JTextArea that always fills the maximum space available to it? (and if possible with a minimum width after which a scrollbar appears if the user sizes the frame even smaller)
In the parent container of the JTextArea (denoted as Panel 1 in your drawing), call the function:
panel1.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
For reference, see this documentation page:
https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/awt/BorderLayout.html
As you only have a single child in panel1, the BorderLayout layout manager of panel1 will by default stretch the text area to use all available space in the parent container.
You may want to take away the constructor parameters specifying the size of your TextArea. The BorderLayout should take care of sizes for you :)
You can request that Swing respects a certain minimum size for the text area by calling:
textArea.setMinimumSize(new Dimension(minimum_width, minimum_height));
You have to use layout manager, for start see oficial Oracle docu about layout managers. For your situation, BorderLayout or GridBagLayout should work fine.
Start with:
panel1.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
or
panel1.setLayout(new GridBagLayout());
With GridBagLayout you can more preciselly do layouting (with BorderLayout you have five areas - no more, no less). With GridBagLayout you can do more complicated layouts.
I am trying to create a GUI in which has three main panels for a text-based game: the leftmost panel for your stats/inventory, the center panel will be for a text pane that displays the story and a text field to type your commands, and the rightmost pane contains quest and mission information. I set the main content pane to have a BorderLayout and added JPanels to the west, center, and east positions (no components added to the panels yet). The center panel takes up most of the space, so I set the east's and west's panels' preferredSize width to be 200, which looks great proportionally for the size of the JFrame (800x500). When maximising the window, however, the east and west panels remain at 200 rather than scaling up proportionally, making it seem small compared to the center panel. When resizing the width of the window to be smaller than 800, the east and west panels remain 200 while the center panel gets smaller, to the point of the east and west panels overlapping. I was wondering if it would be possible to use BorderLayout's west, center, and east positions to scale proportionally upon resizing rather than just the center resizing up and down.
Thank you much for your time!
Edit:
Here are a couple snapshots to show the GUI. It is saying I do not have enough reputation to include images on my posts, so I can only include the hyperlinks to them.
The first image shows the frame at 800x500, the default size (blank space at left and right of the center panel are empty JPanels). The second image shows the GUI maximised (left and right panels remaining at 200).
scale proportionally upon resizing rather than just the center resizing up and down.
I suggest you to use GridBagLayout where you can set the width and height of the components in percentage defining different constraints of GridBagConstraints
See Swing Tutorial on How to Use GridBagLayout
What is the best way to display let's say rectangle (3x5) with icons 20x20 px.? I want to change the image file of every pic icon later (= it's not just static pictures). I tried to make JFrame full of JPanels, but i was able to display only one panel at a time. I don't want to use GridLayout, because I need just small rectangle inside a frame. Any ideas how to do it? Couldn't find any tutorial or solution. I'm completely new to GUI developement. Thanks
You do want to use a GridLayout. Your problem is that the JFrame you put the icons into uses a BorderLayout by default (and really, you shouldn't change the layout of a top level component).
What this means is that, if you add multiple panels to the frame, without using one of the NORTH, EAST, SOUTH, WEST constraints, only one of the panels will be visible and take up all the space. If you use a GridLayout for that one panel you get, the icons will be stretched, because the panel receives all the space due to the frame's BorderLayout. An alternate layout that doesn't stretch its contents is FlowLayout, but the layout to use depends heavily on your context.
To display the icons, a JLabel is handy. Use an ImageIcon for the label's icon. You can later use setIcon() on the label to choose a new icon.
overall, my approach would be this:
use a JFrame which has a BorderLayout
to the frame, add a JPanel to the frame. The default layout is a FlowLayout, which will prevent the stretching
to the panel, add a JPanel with an appropriate GridLayout
to that panel, add the JLabels, each having an appropriate ImageIcon
I'm making Minesweeper as a school project. It's close to completion, but the only problem now is setting JFrame's size. I just can't figure out a way to set frames to the size I want.
The program looks almost like a Swing version of the original Minesweeper on Windows XP.
The main frame's layout is flow layout. There's a top panel for the time, mines, and reset button. The top panel's using flow layout, and the bottom panel's using grid layout for the buttons.
I set the preferred size of the frame's content pane. Getting the width is easy (The numbers of fields in a row * my button size), but the problem is getting the height right. The frame always go down to the 2nd last row of the minefield.
I also tried pack() but it resizes it to the preferred size of the content pane, which isn't the right size to begin with. What can I do?
Don't have the JFrame (or better its contentPane) use FlowLayout since this won't give the JFrame the best size for its components. Instead why not have it use the default BorderLayout? Your mine cell's will probably have their getPreferredSize() method overridden and thus will direct the size of the enclosing containers. As always, call pack() on the JFrame after filling it with components and before calling setVisible(true) on it.
Set a preferred size for the buttons in the GridLayout and pack() the frame after adding them.
Don't try to manually set the size. You should let each component display at its preferred size and use the pack() method.
The main frame's layout is flow layout. There's a top panel for the time, mines, and reset button
I would use a BorderLayout. Create a top panel and add it to the NORTH.
Then create a panel for the grid and add it to the CENTER. If you have problems with the buttons in the grid resizing then try creating a JPanel as a wrapper panel. Add the buttons to this panel and then add this panel to the CENTER of the frame. The panel will retain its preferred size.
I have a JTabbedPane and a JTextArea, I want the Textareas/Panes to resize to fit the window when the window is resized. How do I do this? I'm also fuzzy on if it's the right text component to use.
Really Muddled.
EDIT: I was setting explicit size as a dumb dumb. I've got it all worked out. What I did is set the viewport of a JScrollPane as the JTextArea and remove all explicit sizing.
Thanks chaps!
You can use whatever components you like. All JComponents can resize with a resizing parent container. You simply need to choose the correct LayoutManager.
Depending on how you want everything set up, I assume you will want to add your JTabbedPane to your JFrame like so:
JTabbedPane jtp;
JFrame frame;
// JFrame's default layour is border layout.
frame.add(jtp, BorderLayout.CENTER);
This will cause the JTabbed pane to take up all of the space of the JFrame.
You will also need to set your JTabbedPane's layout manager to BorderLayout, and also any tab you add to the JTabbedPane will need to have a BorderLayout.
To set the layout of your components, do:
JComponent anyComponent;
anyComponent.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
Have a look at the Java LayoutManager tutorials for more information.
I should mention that the reason I suggest BorderLayout is because any component added to the CENTER of a BorderLayout will automatically take up any space not taken up by any of the borders. And, since you aren't adding anything to any of the other borders (NORTH, SOUTH, EAST, WEST) the component in the center will take up the entire space.
Every JComponent is resized automatically when the container it resides in, is resized.
It's not a matter of the right component but more a matter of which LayoutManager to use.
When adding a Component to a container, you can set the minimum size, default size and maximum size.
On resizing the container, the component will scale automatically until reaching the desired maximum size.
If you need code snippets, tell me and I will fire up my IDE later.
cheers
EDIT: jjnguy beat me to it.. nvm then :p