Help with creating a layout.

Question

I need help creating a layout for my program, but am having tons of problems. I just an't that good at creating this, and it's been driving me insane.
Here's the link to how I want it to look like. http://s94182144.onlinehome.us/randomstuff/layout.JPG
In panel 1... that will be a cartesian plain, so it will pretty much be empty until lines and stuff are drawn in there.
In panel 2, there will be two drop down menus and a couple of buttons
In panel 3, there will be a bunch of things, with two buttons on the bottom.... and this section has to be scrollable.
Any help with the basic layout will be helpful... I can put in the buttons myself. For reference, the whole programs size is 400x800.
Thanks,
sachit

Answer 1

Read this section from the Swing tutorial on [url http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/layout/visual.html]How to Use Layout Managers. You can combine multiple Layout Managers to get the effect your want. By default the content pane uses the BorderLayout, so one approach might be:
JPanel center = new JPanel(new BorderLayout());
center.add(panel1, BorderLayout.CENTER);
center.add(panel2, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
getContentPane().add(center, BorderLayout.CENTER);
getContentPane().add(panel3, BorderLayout.EAST);
It turn you would layout panel1, panel2 and panel3 with the appropriate layout manager. Panel2 could be something like:
JPanel panel2 = new JPanel( new BorderLayout() );
panel2.add(comboBox1, BorderLayout.WEST);
panel2.add(comboBox2, BorderLayout.EAST);
JPanel bottom = new JPanel();
bottom.add(button1);
buttom.add(button2);
panel.add(bottom, BorderLayout.SOUTH);