Swing Grouplayout: Resizing and Limiting Component Sizes

Swing GroupLayout: Resizing and limiting component sizes

In this example, GroupLayout can simply rely on the preferred size of the label, without having to resort to any setXXXSize() method. In this approach,

• The space for the labels always accommodates the largest label.
• The text fields are resizable in a useful way.
• The result is correct across platforms and fonts.
• "You do not need to specify anything for most of the components…because the components themselves have the desired resizing behavior as default."—How to Use GroupLayout: Component Size and Resizability

The use of GroupLayout.Alignment.TRAILING to right justify the labels is a personal preference, and I've added a second panel to show how it works nested in another layout.

import java.awt.EventQueue;
import javax.swing.BorderFactory;
import javax.swing.Box;
import javax.swing.BoxLayout;
import javax.swing.GroupLayout;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JTextField;

/** @see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8492065 */
public class GroupPanel extends JPanel {

    private JLabel label1 = new JLabel("Primary:");
    private JTextField field1 = new JTextField(16);
    private JLabel label2 = new JLabel("Secondary:");
    private JTextField field2 = new JTextField(16);
    private JLabel label3 = new JLabel("Tertiary:");
    private JTextField field3 = new JTextField(16);

    public GroupPanel(int n) {
        this.setBorder(BorderFactory.createTitledBorder("Panel " + n));
        GroupLayout layout = new GroupLayout(this);          
        this.setLayout(layout);
        layout.setAutoCreateGaps(true);
        layout.setAutoCreateContainerGaps(true);
        layout.setHorizontalGroup(layout.createSequentialGroup()
            .addGroup(layout.createParallelGroup(GroupLayout.Alignment.TRAILING)
                .addComponent(label1)
                .addComponent(label2)
                .addComponent(label3))
            .addGroup(layout.createParallelGroup(GroupLayout.Alignment.LEADING)
                .addComponent(field1)
                .addComponent(field2)
                .addComponent(field3))
        );
        layout.setVerticalGroup(layout.createSequentialGroup()
            .addGroup(layout.createParallelGroup(GroupLayout.Alignment.BASELINE)
                .addComponent(label1)
                .addComponent(field1))
            .addGroup(layout.createParallelGroup(GroupLayout.Alignment.BASELINE)
                .addComponent(label2)
                .addComponent(field2))
            .addGroup(layout.createParallelGroup(GroupLayout.Alignment.BASELINE)
                .addComponent(label3)
                .addComponent(field3))
        );
    }

    private static void display() {
        JFrame f = new JFrame("GroupPanel");
        f.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        f.setLayout(new BoxLayout(f.getContentPane(), BoxLayout.Y_AXIS));
        f.add(new GroupPanel(1));
        f.add(new GroupPanel(2));
        f.add(Box.createVerticalGlue());
        f.pack();
        f.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
        f.setVisible(true);
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {

            @Override
            public void run() {
                display();
            }
        });
    }
}

How to align things in GroupLayout?

To answer my own question adding a preferredGap() does the trick.
The final code is

layout.setHorizontalGroup(layout
  .createSequentialGroup()
  .addComponent(label, labelWidth, labelWidth, labelWidth)
  .addPreferredGap(LayoutStyle.ComponentPlacement.RELATED,
                   GroupLayout.PREFERRED_SIZE, Short.MAX_VALUE)
  .addGroup(layout
              .createParallelGroup(GroupLayout.Alignment.CENTER)
              .addComponent(installButton, BUTTON_WIDTH, BUTTON_WIDTH,
                            BUTTON_WIDTH).addComponent(installProgressBar)
              .addComponent(updateLabel).addComponent(updateButton)
              .addComponent(removeButton)));

layout.setVerticalGroup(layout
  .createParallelGroup()
  .addComponent(label)
  .addGroup(layout
              .createSequentialGroup()
              .addComponent(installButton)
              .addGroup(layout.createParallelGroup()
                          .addComponent(installProgressBar)
                          .addComponent(updateLabel))
              .addComponent(updateButton).addComponent(removeButton)));

layout
  .linkSize(SwingConstants.HORIZONTAL, installButton, installProgressBar,
            updateLabel, updateButton, removeButton);

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