SetVisible(false) with the space occupied

Question

I would hide a JButton in a JApplet. I'm using setVisible() method but I've a problem: it works but my GUI is shifted because of the absence of the component. Is there a way to hide a component and make its space occupied??? I know that is possible in Android, but in Java? ps. To insert component in my JPanel I'm using GridBagLayout!

Answer 1

There are several ways to achieve this in general.

Most proper way is to layout other components in a way that they remain correctly attached at their current positions.

Since for complex layouts the proper way can be hard to get and especially hard to change afterwards, you can apply some layout 'hacks'. For example, instead of adding the button to the panel directly, you could add the button to a separate panel of its own (let's name it buttonPanel), and then add that panel together with the button to the panel containing the other components. That way when you remove the button, buttonPanel will stay to fill the gap.

However, depending on the way how you specified constraints, buttonPanel may shrink when you remove the button. To prevent this, just before removing the button, take the buttonPanel's width and set it as its minimum/preferred width; most LayoutManagers will respect this property.

Of course, you can always resort to hardcoding dimensions to avoid dynamic size calculations, but keep in mind issues with L&F and i18n.

Answer 2

Try using the setOpaque() method. Just do button.setOpaque(false); and that should do the trick. Does that work?