Swing layout - a central panel for scrolling with multiple JEditorPanes

Question

I'm having trouble creating Swing layouts to do what I want. I want the Center panel to contain two JEditorPanes to scroll when it contains "n" Panes of equal (fixed) height.
I play in Netbean UI designer to try to get it working
jPanel3 is the central panel
jEditorPane4 and 5 are some examples of editor panels (they will contain comments)

public class GBugForm1 extends javax.swing.JFrame { public static void main(String[] args) { GBugForm1 form; form = new GBugForm1(); form.setDefaultCloseOperation(javax.swing.JDialog.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE); form.setSize(500,500); form.setVisible(true); } /** * Creates new form GBugForm */ public GBugForm1() { initComponents(); } /** * This method is called from within the constructor to initialize the form. * WARNING: Do NOT modify this code. The content of this method is always * regenerated by the Form Editor. */ @SuppressWarnings("unchecked") // <editor-fold defaultstate="collapsed" desc="Generated Code"> private void initComponents() { jPanel1 = new javax.swing.JPanel(); jPanel3 = new javax.swing.JPanel(); jScrollPane6 = new javax.swing.JScrollPane(); jEditorPane4 = new javax.swing.JEditorPane(); jScrollPane4 = new javax.swing.JScrollPane(); jEditorPane5 = new javax.swing.JEditorPane(); jPanel4 = new javax.swing.JPanel(); jPanel2 = new javax.swing.JPanel(); setPreferredSize(new java.awt.Dimension(500, 460)); setLayout(new java.awt.BorderLayout()); jPanel1.setLayout(new java.awt.BorderLayout()); jPanel3.setLayout(new javax.swing.BoxLayout(jPanel3, javax.swing.BoxLayout.PAGE_AXIS)); jEditorPane4.setPreferredSize(new java.awt.Dimension(106, 200)); jScrollPane6.setViewportView(jEditorPane4); jPanel3.add(jScrollPane6); jScrollPane4.setViewportView(jEditorPane5); jPanel3.add(jScrollPane4); jPanel1.add(jPanel3, java.awt.BorderLayout.CENTER); jPanel4.setPreferredSize(new java.awt.Dimension(492, 105)); javax.swing.GroupLayout jPanel4Layout = new javax.swing.GroupLayout(jPanel4); jPanel4.setLayout(jPanel4Layout); jPanel4Layout.setHorizontalGroup( jPanel4Layout.createParallelGroup(javax.swing.GroupLayout.Alignment.LEADING) .addGap(0, 500, Short.MAX_VALUE) ); jPanel4Layout.setVerticalGroup( jPanel4Layout.createParallelGroup(javax.swing.GroupLayout.Alignment.LEADING) .addGap(0, 105, Short.MAX_VALUE) ); jPanel1.add(jPanel4, java.awt.BorderLayout.PAGE_START); add(jPanel1, java.awt.BorderLayout.CENTER); jPanel2.setPreferredSize(new java.awt.Dimension(400, 40)); javax.swing.GroupLayout jPanel2Layout = new javax.swing.GroupLayout(jPanel2); jPanel2.setLayout(jPanel2Layout); jPanel2Layout.setHorizontalGroup( jPanel2Layout.createParallelGroup(javax.swing.GroupLayout.Alignment.LEADING) .addGap(0, 500, Short.MAX_VALUE) ); jPanel2Layout.setVerticalGroup( jPanel2Layout.createParallelGroup(javax.swing.GroupLayout.Alignment.LEADING) .addGap(0, 40, Short.MAX_VALUE) ); add(jPanel2, java.awt.BorderLayout.SOUTH); }// </editor-fold> // Variables declaration - do not modify private javax.swing.JEditorPane jEditorPane4; private javax.swing.JEditorPane jEditorPane5; private javax.swing.JPanel jPanel1; private javax.swing.JPanel jPanel2; private javax.swing.JPanel jPanel3; private javax.swing.JPanel jPanel4; private javax.swing.JScrollPane jScrollPane4; private javax.swing.JScrollPane jScrollPane6; // End of variables declaration } 

Answer 1

Here is a sscce that can help you in your further endeavors. Each size of the preferred panel is specified to make the scroll bar appear; Similarly, the frame size is set (after pack() ) to make the outer scroll bar appear. See Q & A for more details. Also note the use of RFC 2606 , the corresponding URL.

As an aside, you should probably study the layouts before relying too heavily on the GUI editor.

 import java.awt.Dimension; import java.awt.EventQueue; import java.awt.GridLayout; import java.io.IOException; import javax.swing.JEditorPane; import javax.swing.JFrame; import javax.swing.JPanel; import javax.swing.JScrollPane; /** * @see https://stackoverflow.com/a/12827643/230513 * @see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4755524 */ public class HtmlView extends JPanel { private static final String EXAMPLE = "http://www.example.com"; private final JEditorPane jep; public HtmlView(String url) { super(new GridLayout(1, 1)); jep = new JEditorPane(); try { jep.setPage(EXAMPLE); } catch (IOException ioe) { ioe.printStackTrace(System.err); } jep.setEditable(false); this.add(new JScrollPane(jep)); } @Override public Dimension getPreferredSize() { return new Dimension(600, 200); } public static void main(String[] args) { EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() { @Override public void run() { JFrame f = new JFrame(); f.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE); JPanel panel = new JPanel(new GridLayout(0, 1)); panel.add(new HtmlView(EXAMPLE)); panel.add(new HtmlView(EXAMPLE)); panel.add(new HtmlView(EXAMPLE)); f.add(new JScrollPane(panel)); f.pack(); f.setSize(640, 480); f.setVisible(true); } }); } }