Layout Managers in Swing - Java Swing

Java examples for Swing:Layout Manager

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Introduction

A container uses a layout manager to compute the position and size of all its components.

The following layout managers are popular.

  • FlowLayout
  • BorderLayout
  • CardLayout
  • BoxLayout
  • GridLayout
  • GridBagLayout
  • GroupLayout
  • SpringLayout

Every container has a default layout manager.

The default layout manager for the content pane of a JFrame is BorderLayout.

The default layout manager for a JPanel is FlowLayout.

You can change the default layout manager by using setLayout() method.

To not use any layout manager, pass null to the setLayout() method.

You can use the getLayout() of a container to get its layout manager.

Demo Code

import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Container;
import java.awt.FlowLayout;
import java.awt.LayoutManager;

import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;

public class Main {
  public static void main(String[] argv) throws Exception {
    // Set FlowLayout as the layout manager for the content pane of a JFrame
    JFrame frame = new JFrame("Test Frame");
    Container contentPane = frame.getContentPane();
    contentPane.setLayout(new FlowLayout());

    // Set BorderLayout as the layout manager for a JPanel
    JPanel panel = new JPanel();
    panel.setLayout(new BorderLayout());

    // Get the layout manager for a container
    LayoutManager layoutManager = contentPane.getLayout();
  }/*w w  w  . j  a  v  a 2 s  .  c  om*/
}

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