Adding padding to GUI components

[Matthew Taylor]

I'm using a border layout, and each cell except SOUTH in the layout contains a JPanel. Each JPanel contains a few components. All I would like to do is add some padding to the NORTH and SOUTH JPanels and keep them centered....

Or, I want to take this:

+----------------------------------+
| NORTH JPanel                     |
+----------------------------------+
+----------------++----------------+
| WEST JPanel    ++ EAST JPanel    |
+----------------++----------------+
+----------------------------------+
| SOUTH JPanel                     |
+----------------------------------+

to this:

      +---------------------+
      | NORTH JPanel        |
      +---------------------+
+----------------++----------------+
| WEST JPanel    ++ EAST JPanel    |
+----------------++----------------+
      +---------------------+
      | SOUTH JPanel        |
      +---------------------+

How can I add padding either to the JPanels in the NORTH and SOUTH cells, or to the BorderLayout cells?

Of course that really wasn't code, but it was the only way I could find to format it correctly.
[ October 18, 2004: Message edited by: Matthew Taylor ]

[Rachel Swailes]

You can pad every cell in a BorderLayout by using the constructor
new BorderLayout(5,5) where 5 is the px of padding you want on every cell.

You can also pad components individually by giving them an empty border (or compound border if you need the line).
myComp.setBorder(BorderFactory.createEmptyBorder(top,left,bottom,right));

Cheers,
Rachel

[Matthew Taylor]

I should have known. Thanks, the EmptyBorder did what I wanted.