What Is Layout?

Java Swing Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples - Version 4.11, by Dr. Herong Yang

Java Swing Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟What Is Layout?

This section describes AWT layout classes that can be used to layout components in a container. Commonly used layouts are BorderLayout, FlowLayout, BoxLayout, GridLayout, and GridBagLayout.

What Is Layout? A layout is a set of rules that defines how graphical components should be positioned in a container.

There two ways to position a component is a container:

Using a predefined layout and allowing the layout to decide where to position the component. This is a soft way of positioning a component. If the container changes its size, the component's position will be adjusted. But you may not able to get precisely where you want to component to be.
Specifying the position of the component using the container's coordinates. This is a hard way of positioning a component. You can get precisely where you want the component to be. But if the container changes its size, the component's position will not be adjusted.

AWT offers a number of predefined layouts for you to use:

java.awt.BorderLayout - Divides the container into five regions: east, south, west, north, and center and assigns one component for each region.
java.awt.FlowLayout - Takes unlimited number of components and let them flow naturally horizontally first, then vertically.
java.awt.BoxLayout - Takes unlimited number of components and let them flow horizontally or vertically in one direction.
java.awt.GridLayout - Divides the container into rows and columns and assigns one component for each cell.
java.awt.GridBagLayout - Divides the container into rows and columns and assigns one component for each cell with cell sizes not equal.

Last update: 2014.

Table of Contents

About This Book

Introduction of Java Swing Package

Graphics Environment of the Local System

JFrame - Main Frame Class

JLabel - Swing Label Class

JButton - Swing Button Class

JRadioButton - Swing Radio Button Class

JTextField - Swing Text Field Class

Menu Bar, Menus, Menu Items and Listeners

Creating Internal Frames inside the Main Frame