How to see the borders of a "display area" in GridBagLayout

Question

I would like to see the display area of a JPanel .
I use this technique:
panel.setBorder(new TitledBorder(new LineBorder(Color.blue, 2), "DisplayArea?"));
//Is this correct?
If not, how can I see the borders of a display area (as opposed to the borders of a JPanel ) of a JPanel ?
note: I am new to Swing, so I am using the word "display area" in the context of what I read in the API for java.awt.GridBagLayout .
Maybe there is no real concept of a "display area"?
I am trying to get the JPanel to expand to the borders of its "display area", but I can't see what is going on. Either I am not expanding the JPanel, or the "display area" is smaller than I would think.
Thanks.
Edited by: rikasai on May 3, 2009 2:07 AM

Answer 1

I think your basic problem lies in this "note: I am new to Swing,",
and quite probably do not have a sufficient understanding of layoutManagers,
in particular the one associated with JFrame.
your problem reads as though you have a JPanel that you have sized to (e.g.) 400,200
and added this to a JFrame, sized at (e.g.) 600,400, and you expect this to give you a
100 blank area around the panel.
the nature of a JFrame's default layoutManager is that if you add something to it,
via frame.add(panel), it will be added to the default area of the frame (CENTER), and
it will take all the available space. So, whether you specify 400,200 or 50,50 etc,
the panel will take up all of the available space in the contentPane of the 600,400 frame.