How to push GridbagLayout not to lay components in the center of JPanel

Question

the problem is in centered layout of components, GridBagLayout always 'sits' in center of JPanel, so I don't care how it will layout components inside, my problem is where these components will start laying out on a panel.

I tried with:

panel.setAlignmentX( JPanel.LEFT_ALIGNMENT );

but it did not helped.

Any idea?

Answer 1

You need to add at least one component that will fill the horizontal space. If you don't have such a component you can try this:

GridBagConstraints noFill = new GridBagConstraints();
noFill.anchor = GridBagConstraints.WEST;
noFill.fill = GridBagConstraints.NONE;

GridBagConstraints horizontalFill = new GridBagConstraints();
horizontalFill.anchor = GridBagConstraints.WEST;
horizontalFill.fill = GridBagConstraints.HORIZONTAL;    

panel.add(new JLabel("Left Aligned"), noFill);
panel.add(Box.createHorizontalGlue(), horizontalFill);

Answer 2

If you want to change where a component is located in a cell created by a GridBagLayout use the parameter anchor from GridBagConstraints.

Answer 3

I had the same problem as you. Solved it by adding that Panel into another one with BorderLayout and NORTH constraint.

Ondrej

Answer 4

You can done it by simply use this utility jar painless-gridbag. It also make your code with GridBagLayout much prettier, like following

    PainlessGridBag gbl = new PainlessGridBag(getContentPane(), false);

    gbl.row().cell(lblFirstName).cell(txtFirstName).fillX()
             .cell(lblFamilyName).cell(txtFamilyName).fillX();
    gbl.row().cell(lblAddress).cellXRemainder(txtAddress).fillX();

    gbl.doneAndPushEverythingToTop();