Help with the basics please

Question

hello, i am trying to create a window that displays a grid of 100 buttons arranged 10 x 10. I then would like to place a couple of buttons nicely beneath this grid that might exit the program or whatever.
my problem here is that i can't control the size of the grid the two nested for loops create and it just fills the entire window and dosen't even stay in a 10 x 10 formation, instead it randomly arranges them to fit the two buttons in at the bottom!
is there some sort of setSize comand i can use so the grid is set to a certain size, maybe of the EAST of the screen?????
here is my code so far!
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
class trialgrid extends JFrame
public trialgrid()
               JFrame frame = new JFrame("One Player");
               frame.setSize(620, 650); // sets size of window displayed
               Container content = frame.getContentPane();     
               JPanel grid = new JPanel();                         
               content.setLayout(new GridLayout(10, 10)); // contains the grids info
               content.setSize(100, 100); // this is doing nothing!!!
               for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
                    for (int j = 0; j < 10; j++)
                         JButton square = new JButton();
                         square.setBackground(Color.blue); //nested for loops to create 10 x 10 grid of buttons
                         content.add(square);
               content.add(grid, BorderLayout.NORTH); // trying to create some sort of layout
               JPanel form = new JPanel(); // second panel that i want to go beneath grid of buttons
               form.add(new JButton("OK"));
               form.add(new JButton("Exit"));
               content.add(form, BorderLayout.SOUTH); // here i'm trying to put south below "north" grid
               frame.setVisible(true);
               frame.setResizable(false);
               frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
     public static void main (String args[])
     trialgrid gl = new trialgrid();
}

Answer 1

1.
The only problem i have left is one of my original
l ones..... i need to be able to control the actual
size (height and width) of the grid that is produced
by the for loops!!
Because i want to set the size of the window to 620
by 650 pixels i wondered if you could control the
size of the panel and then maybe centralize it in the
middle so it would have spaces either side and top
and bottom??
Read More about:- Layout managers. setPreferredSize(), getPreferredSize() etc
Subclass a JPanel so that it returns your preferred Dimensions
2.
The thing about the buttons is i am later going to
use something like mouseClicked(MouseEvent);
getX(),
getY() to locate the mouse's location to
manipulate actions. So im not sure yet if i need to
be able to name each button or get rid of the buttons
completely!!If you want the effect of buttons and don't want to go to all the extra trouble of interpreting which one was clicked from the mouse coordinates, which is going to be a real pain if you resize anything.. you could try something along these lines...
       private void fillPanelWithLotsOfButtons( JPanel inPanel )
                      JButton currentButton;
                      String s = "";
                      int buttonNumber = 0;
                       GridLayout grid = new GridLayout( 10, 10, 5, 5 ); // 5Pixel spaces Horizontal and vertical
                      inPanel.setLayout( grid );
                     for( int i = 0 ;  i < 10 ; i ++ )
                                  for( int j = 0; j < 10 ; j ++ )
                                              buttonNumber = ( i * 10 ) + j;
                                              s =  Integer.toString( buttonNumber).trim();
                                              currentButton = new JButton(); // you might want to add a Subclass of Button that is set to your wanted size....
                                             // Or you could do currentButton = new JButton( s );
                                             currentButton.setActionCommand( s ); // will be "0", "1", "2", ......................................
                                             currentButton.addActionListener( this ); //  assumes that this classs implements ActionListener
                                             inPanel.add( currentButton );
        // Then Further on in your code
       // you can tell which button was pressed fairly easily
      public void actionPerformed( ActionEvent event )
                        String myAction = event.getActionCommand();
                        int buttonNumber = Integer.parseInt( myAction );
                        System.out.println( "Button Number " + buttonNumber );
       }or something along those sort of lines
To Flounder, that idea does interest me a lot, i have
been thinking i need more panels, maybe East, North
and West and fill these with ships, a title and
instructions respectively. **To make sense of this i
am creating a battleships game** So i need to make
another 5 panels really so i'm not sure if i could
add all these to a 6th panel?
After reading this, I'd suggest using JToggleButton
you could make a custom subclass with appropriate Images, for selected and not selected
any code or suggestions greatly appreicated!! Thank
you