How to make JTabbedPane sort automatically according to page size?

Question

I only have a JTabbedPane inside a JFrame. JTabbedPane sets its dimensions to the maximum page width / height. Since pages are of different sizes, is it possible to get JTabbedPane to resize when another page is selected?

http://grab.by/3hIg

The top one is how it behaves now, and the bottom one is how I want it to behave (I manually resized the frame)

Answer 1

It is pretty simple. This is due to the dynamic calculation of the differences between the size of your pages and their use to force you to use the JTabbedPane size. I did a quick experiment and it worked. So instead of posting a lot of text here - here is the code. This is not ideal, but you should get an idea. Of course, questions are welcome.

 import java.awt.Color; import java.awt.Component; import java.awt.Dimension; import javax.swing.JFrame; import javax.swing.JPanel; import javax.swing.JTabbedPane; import javax.swing.event.ChangeEvent; import javax.swing.event.ChangeListener; public class Test { private static int maxW = 0; private static int maxH = 0; public static void main(String[] args) { final JFrame f = new JFrame(); final JTabbedPane tabs = new JTabbedPane(); tabs.add( createPanel(Color.RED, 100, 100), "Red"); tabs.add( createPanel(Color.GREEN, 200, 200), "Green"); tabs.add( createPanel(Color.BLUE, 300, 300), "Blue"); final Dimension originalTabsDim = tabs.getPreferredSize(); tabs.addChangeListener(new ChangeListener() { @Override public void stateChanged(ChangeEvent e) { Component p = ((JTabbedPane) e.getSource()).getSelectedComponent(); Dimension panelDim = p.getPreferredSize(); Dimension nd = new Dimension( originalTabsDim.width - ( maxW - panelDim.width), originalTabsDim.height - ( maxH - panelDim.height) ); tabs.setPreferredSize(nd); f.pack(); } }); f.setContentPane(tabs); f.setDefaultCloseOperation( JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE ); f.pack(); f.setLocationRelativeTo(null); f.setVisible(true); } private static final JPanel createPanel( Color color, int w, int h ) { JPanel p = new JPanel(); p.setBackground(color); p.setPreferredSize( new Dimension(w, h)); maxW = Math.max(w, maxW); maxH = Math.max(h, maxH); return p; } } 

Answer 2

I think another option is to dynamically change the panels of each tab when selecting a tab:

• set the listener to choose JTabbedPane
• set an empty panel on each tab, but the selected tab is the default (containing the real panel for this tab)
• in the listener of choice:
  • remove the panel from the previously selected tab (i.e. replace it with an empty panel)
  • change the blank panel to the real panel on the newly selected tab
  • calling pack() on a window / dialog containing JTabbedPane

Disclaimer I have not tested this approach, but I believe that it should work in accordance with what you want.

Also note that dynamically resizing a dialog box based on a selected tab is not very convenient in terms of a clean graphical interface.

Answer 3

How about this?

 tabbedPane.addChangeListener(new ChangeListener(){ @Override public void stateChanged(ChangeEvent arg0) { Component mCompo=tabbedPane.getSelectedComponent(); tabbedPane.setPreferredSize(mCompo.getPreferredSize()); BasicFrame.this.pack(); } });