Addition to what Thomas says
There are two types of panels in GWT for arranging widgets on the screen: Panels (for example: TabPanel) and Layout Panels (for example: TabLayoutPanel)
Panels or panels without layout
These panels (TabPanel, DockPanel, Horizontal panel, Vertical panel, AbsolutePanel ...) allow you to explicitly display widgets. It will display widgets as imagined (subject to the correct imagination;)). Its child widgets do not automatically resize when the browser is resized.
Breadboard panels
These panels (TabLayoutPanel, DockLayoutPanel, ScrollPanel, FlexTable, SplitLayoutPanel ...) allow you to explicitly display widgets, but also change the size of the child widget when resizing the browser, because each of them implements RequiresResize and / or providesResize , provided that you maintain a hierarchy of panels layout throughout and provide the size of panels and widgets as a percentage.
Sources: GWT Documents and Personal Experience
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