BorderLayout right approach?

Question

I asked a question wrt BorderLayout in the programming forum and was asked to post such questions here. Basically I have a JFrame and I want to put a JPanel in the middle of it. I tried using BorderLayout.CENTER but the default center behavior is to fill all available area. The person replying to my question stated that this behavior can not be disabled. If that is true what is the best layout manager option to put my panel in the middle and be the sole component added to the frame?
Is there such a creature as relative positioning where I specify where to stick my panel with no need to use a layout manager?

Answer 1

I searched some more and found this:
Using a horizontal box and a verticle box can do it.
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import javax.swing.Box;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
public class Center extends JFrame {
public Center(){
Box xp = Box.createHorizontalBox();
xp.add(Box.createHorizontalGlue());
xp.add(new JButton("Center"));
xp.add(Box.createHorizontalGlue());
Box yp = Box.createVerticalBox();
yp.add(Box.createVerticalGlue());
yp.add(xp);
yp.add(Box.createVerticalGlue());
getContentPane().add(yp, BorderLayout.CENTER);
public static void main(String[] args) {
JFrame f = new Center();
f.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
f.setSize(400, 400);
f.setVisible(true);
as part of the thread
http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jspa?forumID=57&threadID=609087.
dingjing is the creator of this code and many thanks!
I tweaked it a bit to fit into my program and it works like a charm! I will now shut down my Eclipse and research WHY it works!
Thanks for the suggestion! I will try that too and compare.