2 Layouts for JPanel?

Question

I am making a gui for a program and it uses JPanels to do so. I have 2 JPanels. The first one contains a JLabel, and JTextField. The second one contains a JLabel and JTextField. I need both of those at the bottom of the screen, one on top of the other. I tried BorderLayout.SOUTH but one of the Panels overwrites the other. And if I use BoxLayout.Y_AXIS then they are not centered or at the bottom. How would I do this?

EDIT: I fixed it. I forgot to set a border layout when I added the panel to the frame. So I fixed it.

In the future, please show your pertinent code relevant to your question. That will save us much grief and waste of time. — Hovercraft Full Of Eels, Mar 29 '15 at 18:10

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:16

Solution: nest JPanels

Create a 3rd JPanel, one that uses BoxLayout oriented to BoxLayout.PAGE_AXIS, add your 2 JPanels to this, and then add this third JPanel to the main GUI (which hopefully uses BorderLayout) to the BorderLayout.PAGE_END position.

For example, my Minimal, Complete, and Verifiable Example Program:

import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import javax.swing.*;

public class LayoutExample extends JPanel {
   public LayoutExample() {
      JPanel panel1 = new JPanel();
      panel1.add(new JLabel("Label 1"));
      panel1.add(new JTextField(10));
      panel1.setBorder(BorderFactory.createTitledBorder("Panel 1"));

      JPanel panel2 = new JPanel();
      panel2.add(new JLabel("Label 2"));
      panel2.add(new JTextField(10));
      panel2.setBorder(BorderFactory.createTitledBorder("Panel 2"));

      JPanel boxLayoutUsingPanel = new JPanel();
      boxLayoutUsingPanel.setLayout(new BoxLayout(boxLayoutUsingPanel, BoxLayout.PAGE_AXIS));
      boxLayoutUsingPanel.add(panel1);
      boxLayoutUsingPanel.add(panel2);
      boxLayoutUsingPanel.setBorder(BorderFactory.createTitledBorder("BoxLayout Panel"));

      setLayout(new BorderLayout());
      setBorder(BorderFactory.createTitledBorder("Main BorderLayout GUI"));
      add(Box.createRigidArea(new Dimension(400, 200)), BorderLayout.CENTER);
      add(boxLayoutUsingPanel, BorderLayout.PAGE_END);
   }

   private static void createAndShowGui() {
      LayoutExample mainPanel = new LayoutExample();

      JFrame frame = new JFrame("LayoutExample");
      frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE);
      frame.getContentPane().add(mainPanel);
      frame.pack();
      frame.setLocationByPlatform(true);
      frame.setVisible(true);
   }

   public static void main(String[] args) {
      SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
         public void run() {
            createAndShowGui();
         }
      });
   }
}

If still stuck, create and post your Minimal, Complete, and Verifiable Example Program.

It partially worked. It made the text fields not full screen but they are still not at the bottom of the page. — Joel Butenhoff, Mar 29 '15 at 16:56
@JoelButenhoff: see and run my example code above. If this doesn't fix it, then edit your question and post your own [Minimal, Complete, and Verifiable Example Program](http://stackoverflow.com/help/mcve). — Hovercraft Full Of Eels, Mar 29 '15 at 17:01

2 Layouts for JPanel?

1 Answers1