Stacking Components in Java Swing

Question

Oh hay there, did not see you. I was wondering if there is a better, more efficient way to format shortcuts, panels and buttons in java, and then what I did below. Here is my code, I want the Greeting, date and button to be on separate lines. And the only logical way to do this is to create empty labels, right?

private void GeneralTab() {
  generalPanel = new JPanel(new FlowLayout());
  String currentTime = SimpleDateFormat.getInstance().format(
    Calendar.getInstance().getTime());
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel("WELCOME "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" ")); 
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel("                  "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel("Today Date: " + currentTime));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
  generalPanel.add(new JLabel(" "));
   generalPanel.add(createExitButton());
 }

Answer 1

Sounds like you need to know more about LayoutManagers. They help you arrange components in different ways.

Check out the Java tutorials. This is probably the best way to get started using different layouts.

Here is the link to the tutorial:

http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/layout/visual.html

, , BoxLayout. JPanel. JPanel generalPanel. generalPanel BoxLayout :

generalPane.setLayout(new BoxLayout(generalPane, BoxLayout.Y_AXIS));