Thursday, August 21, 2014

Layout in Java Desktop Application

In general, layout managers are objects used in widget toolkits that have the ability to arrange widgets by their relative positions. Java uses layout managers to arrange components in a consistent manner across all windowing platforms.
In this section, we will introduce the following Swing layout managers:
Layout ManagerDescription
FlowLayoutObjects that arrange components in a directional flow, much like lines of text in a paragraph.
GridLayoutObjects that divide the container into equal-sized rectangles and arrange each component into one of these cells.
BorderLayoutObjects that arrange components to the top, bottom, left, right, and center of a container.
To demonstrate these layout managers, we will create an Applet that allows the user to select a layout manager from a list and see the effects it has on some Swing components. In this implementation, we use a BorderLayout manager to place a drop-down list above a panel that contains serveral Swing components (buttons). When an item in the drop-down list is selected, the layout manager for the panel is changed, and without explicitly setting the bounds of any components, the layout manager rearranges the buttons.

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