Overlap JPanels with WindowBuilder for eclipse

Question

I am using WindowBuilder Pro for eclipse, and I would like to have two Jpanels that perfectly overlap each other. I would then be able to toggle their visibilty based on the selection of a combox box. When I try and acheive this in the gui builder, the first panel gets displaced by the second panel. And advice please?

+1 because I didn't know that you could do that until I researched my answer. — Sheriff, Dec 21 '11 at 19:03

score 4 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

It is possible using groupLayout, according to the tutorial .

What you must do is add the components to a mother JPanel , and set that panel to use GroupLayout.

Then add the components to the layout as a ParallelGroup in both the horizontal and vertical spacing. This means they will occupy the same X and Y space. Then disable/enable as needed, hiding the JPanels as well.

I believe the way it would work is so:

        JPanel panel1, panel2, panel3;
        //initialize panel3, etc
        panel1=new JPanel();
        panel2 = new JPanel();
        panel1.add(new JTextField("Panel1"));
        panel2.add(new JTextField("PANEL2"));
        
        groupLayout = new GroupLayout(panel3);
        
        panel3.setLayout(groupLayout);
        
        groupLayout.setHorizontalGroup(
        groupLayout.createParallelGroup(GroupLayout.Alignment.LEADING)
            .addComponent(panel1)
            .addComponent(panel2)
        );
        groupLayout.setVerticalGroup(
            groupLayout.createParallelGroup(GroupLayout.Alignment.LEADING)
            .addComponent(panel1)
            .addComponent(panel2)
        );
        panel1.setEnabled(false);
        panel1.setVisible(false);

then add a jCheckBox with an ActionPerformed method containing:

if(panel1.isEnabled()) {
    panel1.setEnabled(false);
    panel1.setVisible(false);
    panel2.setEnabled(true);
    panel2.setVisible(true);
    
}else
 if(panel2.isEnabled()) {
    panel2.setEnabled(false);
    panel2.setVisible(false);
    panel1.setEnabled(true);
    panel1.setVisible(true);
    
}

That produced the desired behaviour for me. You should be able to switch the JComboBox for the JCheckBox fairly easily.

EDIT: Removed the necessity of having "Jpanel of their own". That should not be the case, and the above method allows you to get the benefits of both GroupLayout and CardLayout.

Why reinvent the wheel. A CardLayout is designed for this purpose. — camickr, Dec 22 '11 at 01:15
Thanks for this Sheriff, the problem with this is that it is very difficult to visually design your forms, unless I am doing it wrong. — pingu, Dec 22 '11 at 09:43
@pingu no worries. Card layout seems to be what you are looking for. I can see some situations where This would be the preferred method, but overall card layout is designed for this. — Sheriff, Dec 22 '11 at 14:05

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 21 '11 at 21:11

3

I would like to have two Jpanels that perfectly overlap each other. I would then be able to toggle their visibilty based on the selection of a combox box

See: How to Use Card Layout for an example that does exactly this.

answered Dec 21 '11 at 21:11

camickr

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 21 '11 at 21:42

0

I would like to have two Jpanels that perfectly overlap each other.

I believe the CardLayout is there exactly for that reason.

Basically, you can nest different panels or 'Cards' using the CardLayout and set the appropriate card to be displayed programmatically (on some event).

answered Dec 21 '11 at 21:42

Optimized Coder

189
2
8

-1 this answer was given 30 minutes earlier. There is no need to clutter the forum with duplicate answers. – camickr Dec 22 '11 at 01:17

Overlap JPanels with WindowBuilder for eclipse

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