Layout clarification

[Vrinda Werdel]

Hi All,

I am need to develop a UI where I need to capture data. So it will be a combination of Labels and TextFields on each line. For instance,

First Name -----------------
Last Name -----------------
Street -----------------

which layout can be used to best represent this.

regards

Vrinda

[Mark Van Tuyl]

You could use a GridLayout on your JFrame with 3 rows.
Each of these rows could contain a JPanel which uses a FlowLayout.
Each JPanel would contain one JLabel and one JTextField.

If you would like some example code, please let me know.

[Vrinda Werdel]

Thanks Mark. Will try this approach.

regards
Vrinda

[Tad Dicks]

I'd use gridbag layout. It has a little bit of a learning curve, but if you want to be particular about how things line up it seems to be the best bet.
Unless you want to try a third party layout (like forms layout from jgoodies) which I've not used myself.

-Tad

[Ken Blair]

If you want to guarantee they line up vertically then I recommend a GridBagLayout as Tad suggested. Here's a few hints to help you out with that. First, set the GridBagConstraints.fill to GridBagConstraints.NONE if you don't want your components to take up the entire cell. Second, use GridBagConstraints.anchor to set where they're positioned within the cell when the cell is bigger than the component. Third, use GridBagConstraints.weightx to specify the weighting to be given to it when assigning extra space.

So, in your example, to make vertical row of fields that look like this:

    Name -------------
 Address -------------
    City ----------
   State --
Zip Code -------

The setup would look something like this:

JPanel myPanel = new JPanel(new GridBagLayout());
GridBagConstraints c = new GridBagConstraints();
c.fill = GridBagConstraints.NONE;
// Explicitly setting these should be unnecessary, but I never trust other
// programmers to not change initial values later and screw up my program.
c.weightx = 0.0;
c.weighty = 0.0;
c.gridwidth = 1;
c.gridheight = 1;
// Start at the left most column and top row.
c.gridx = 0;
c.gridy = 0;
// Labels should align to the EAST, we'll set this to WEST when we
// start adding the text fields.
c.anchor = GridBagConstraitns.EAST;
myPanel.add(nameLabel, c);
c.gridy = 1;
myPanel.add(addressLabel, c);
c.gridy = 2;
myPanel.add(cityLabel, c);
c.gridy = 3;
myPanel.add(stateLabel, c);
c.gridy = 4;
myPanel.add(zipLabel, c);
// Move to the next column and start at the top row.
c.gridx = 1;
c.gridy = 0;
// Now we're going to add the fields which should anchor to the LEFT.
c.anchor = GridBagConstraints.WEST;
myPanel.add(nameField, c);
c.gridy = 1;
myPanel.add(addressField, c);
c.gridy = 2;
myPanel.add(cityField, c);
c.gridy = 3;
myPanel.add(stateField, c);
c.gridy = 4;
myPanel.add(zipField, c);

Obviously the variables ending in "Label" are the JLabel's and the variables ending in "Field" are the JTextField or whatever you're using.