Why does this component appear shrunken ?

[Colm Dickson]

Hi all.

I have some components on a panel and then add this panel to a container and then have my frame displayed as the result of an ActionListener on a button. Why is it that my frame is displayed but is miniscule and looks minimised, only showing the title bar?

This is really annoying. setVisible is set to true and when I expand the frame all my components appear but it will not appear correctly from the oiutset. This has to be something simple I'm missing. Any help much appreciated, thanks.

        
        //this refers to an instance of JDialog called myDialog
        this.setTitle("Add New Category");
        this.setModal(true);
        setPreferredSize(new Dimension(150,40));
      
        JPanel dialogPanel = new JPanel();
        JLabel categoryName = new JLabel("Category Name");
        JButton buttonOk = new JButton("Ok");
        JButton buttonCancel = new JButton("Cancel");
        dialogPanel.add(categoryName);
        dialogPanel.add(new JTextField(20));
        dialogPanel.add(buttonOk);
        dialogPanel.add(buttonCancel);

        this.add(dialogPanel);

   // code from action listener in another class
     public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ae)
    {

        myDialog dialog = new myDialog();
        myDialog.setVisible(true);
        
    }

....all I see is the start of the dialog title 'Add New..'

Thanks.

Colm

[pete stein]

setPreferredSize(new Dimension(150,40));

It's only doing what you tell it to.

Myself, I'd try to use a combination of layouts, and then let the individual layout managers set the best size to display their contents. I'd also call pack on the window before displaying. e.g.,

      JFrame frame = new JFrame();
      frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
      
      JDialog dialog = new JDialog(frame, "Add New Category", true);
      JPanel dialogPanel = new JPanel();
      dialogPanel.setLayout(new BoxLayout(dialogPanel, BoxLayout.PAGE_AXIS));

      JPanel categoryNamePanel = new JPanel();
      categoryNamePanel.add(new JLabel("Category Name", SwingConstants.CENTER));
      dialogPanel.add(categoryNamePanel);
      
      JPanel textFieldPanel = new JPanel();
      textFieldPanel.add(new JTextField(20));
      dialogPanel.add(textFieldPanel);
      
      JPanel buttonPanel = new JPanel();
      buttonPanel.add(new JButton("OK"));
      buttonPanel.add(new JButton("Cancel"));
      dialogPanel.add(buttonPanel);
      
      dialog.getContentPane().add(dialogPanel);
      dialog.pack();
      dialog.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
      dialog.setVisible(true);
      
      frame.dispose();

[Colm Dickson]

Thanks Pete,

That's it....I never even thought that my preferred size was the issue here ....

Cheers,

Colm