How to resize JTextArea when frame has been resized

Question

Hi!
At first, I have to complain, that these Layout Managers drive me crazy. Even as an experienced developer, very often, I am frustrated and I am never 100% sure which layout manager I should choose (according to the Sun How Tos) and once I have decided, the never do what I'd expect them to do. I'm not sure if I am just too dumb or if there might be an unreasonable API architecture/design...
OK, here again is a problem with layouts. And it's basically like this (See code for details):
Row one: Text Area 1, Button 1; Row two: Text Area 2, Button 2.
I just want to have the buttons aligned, the text areas should be same sized. Moreover, I want to disable vertical resizing and on horizontal resizing, I want the TextArea to be resized as well.
But it doesn't. I could partly solve the vertical resizing by setting the minimum size, but the maximum size dosen't seem to work. I can still enlarge the window. The horizontal resizing doesn't work at all. I tried border layout before and set the Text area as center, but it also doesn't work. I read that some layout managers use only preferred size, some also use min and max size and this is very confusing.
And I saw that component resizing should work for box layout as well (see Sun box layout how to). If this problem is easy to solve, please excuse my question, but I couldn't find it in the forum.
OK, here is an SSCCE:
* To change this template, choose Tools | Templates
* and open the template in the editor.
package com.ettex.componentresizetest;
import java.awt.ComponentOrientation;
import java.awt.Container;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.FlowLayout;
import javax.swing.BoxLayout;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JTextField;
* @author Jan Wedel
public class ComponentResizeTest extends JFrame{
     static ComponentResizeTest frame;
     JPanel mainPanel;
     JPanel firstPanel;
     JPanel secondPanel;
     JPanel statusPanel;
     JButton firstButton;
     JButton secondButton;
     JTextField firstField;
     JTextField secondField;
     JLabel statusText;
     public ComponentResizeTest(String name) {
          super(name);
     public void addComponentsToPane() {
          Container pane = this.getContentPane();
          mainPanel = new JPanel();
          firstPanel = new JPanel();
          secondPanel = new JPanel();
          statusPanel = new JPanel();
          pane.setLayout(new BoxLayout(pane, BoxLayout.Y_AXIS));
          firstField = new JTextField();
          secondField = new JTextField();
          statusText = new JLabel("Status Bar");
          firstField.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(500, 25));
          secondField.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(500, 25));
          secondButton = new JButton("A Button");
          firstButton = new JButton("Another Button");
          firstPanel.add(firstField);
          firstPanel.add(secondButton);
          firstPanel.setLayout(new BoxLayout(firstPanel, BoxLayout.X_AXIS));
          secondPanel.add(secondField);
          secondPanel.add(firstButton);
          secondPanel.setLayout(new BoxLayout(secondPanel, BoxLayout.X_AXIS));
          mainPanel.add(firstPanel);
          mainPanel.add(secondPanel);
          mainPanel.setLayout(new BoxLayout(mainPanel, BoxLayout.Y_AXIS));
          statusPanel.add(statusText);
          FlowLayout tabLayout = new FlowLayout();
          tabLayout.setAlignment(FlowLayout.LEFT);
          firstPanel.setLayout(tabLayout);
          firstPanel.setComponentOrientation(ComponentOrientation.LEFT_TO_RIGHT);
          secondPanel.setLayout(tabLayout);
          secondPanel.setComponentOrientation(ComponentOrientation.LEFT_TO_RIGHT);
          statusPanel.setLayout(tabLayout);
          statusPanel.setComponentOrientation(ComponentOrientation.LEFT_TO_RIGHT);
          pane.add(mainPanel);
          pane.add(statusPanel);
      * Create the GUI and show it.  For thread safety,
      * this method should be invoked from the
      * event dispatch thread.
     private static void createAndShowGUI() {
          //Create and set up the window.
          frame = new ComponentResizeTest("Component Resize Test");
          frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
          //Set up the content pane.
          frame.addComponentsToPane();
          /* Layout componets */
          frame.pack();
          /* Prevent vertical resize */
          Dimension cur = frame.getSize();
          Dimension max = frame.getMaximumSize();
          frame.setMinimumSize(new Dimension(cur.width, cur.height));
          frame.setMaximumSize(new Dimension(max.width, cur.height));
          frame.invalidate();
          /* show frame */
          frame.setVisible(true);
      * @param args the command line arguments
     public static void main(String[] args) {
          //Schedule a job for the event dispatchi thread:
          //creating and showing this application's GUI.
          javax.swing.SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
               public void run() {
                    createAndShowGUI();
}Thanks, Jan
Edited by: stelzbock on Nov 9, 2009 6:54 AM

Answer 1

This is what I get using TableLayout:
The maximum horizontal size of the text area is achieved by specifying the columns in the constructor,
although I think it's bad since resizing smaller does reduce the text area. I would use FILL constraint for the text area column and remove the 'filler' column at the end.
import info.clearthought.layout.TableLayout;
import java.awt.EventQueue;
import javax.swing.*;
public class TestLayout {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
            public void run() {
                TableLayout layout = new TableLayout(new double[][] {
                        // columns
                        { TableLayout.PREFERRED, TableLayout.PREFERRED,
                           TableLayout.FILL },
                        // rows
                        { TableLayout.PREFERRED, TableLayout.FILL,
                          TableLayout.PREFERRED, TableLayout.FILL },
                JPanel panel = new JPanel(layout);
                panel.add(new JScrollPane(new JTextArea(3, 30)), "0,0,0,1");
                panel.add(new JButton("One"), "1,0");
                panel.add(new JScrollPane(new JTextArea(3, 30)), "0,2,0,3");
                panel.add(new JButton("Two"), "1,2");
                JFrame frame = new JFrame("Test");
                frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE);
                frame.getContentPane().add(panel);
                frame.pack();
                frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
                frame.setVisible(true);
}Ah, in your code you have text fields, not area and want to restrict vertical resize. Then I get this:
TableLayout layout = new TableLayout(new double[][] {
                        // columns
                        { TableLayout.FILL, TableLayout.PREFERRED },
                        // rows
                        { TableLayout.PREFERRED, TableLayout.PREFERRED,
                            TableLayout.FILL, TableLayout.PREFERRED },
                layout.setVGap(5);
                layout.setHGap(5);
                JPanel panel = new JPanel(layout);
                panel.setBorder(BorderFactory.createEmptyBorder(5, 5, 5, 5));
                panel.add(new JTextField(30), "0,0");
                panel.add(new JButton("One"), "1,0");
                panel.add(new JTextField(30), "0,1");
                panel.add(new JButton("Two"), "1,1");
                panel.add(new JLabel("Status"), "0,3,1,3");Another more advanced layout to look at is MigLayout.
Edited by: WalterLaan on Nov 9, 2009 8:23 AM