Setting a fixed width and a changing height for a component within a panel

Question

Alright guys here's my next question. I'm now having trouble trying to figure out how to only resize the height of a JTabbedPane yet keep the width fixed. In other words, as the JPanel its in changes in size, I'd like to have the width of my tabbed pane stay a certain value yet let the height of it adjust to the panel's height as it changes. Is there a way to somehow extract the panel's height into a int or something and then when using the setPreferredSize() function simply implement this retrieved value into the function's height parameter? I've tried messing around with Dimensions and getHeight() functions and the sort but to no success. For instance, within the constructor of one of my JFrames using System.out.println(this.getHeight()); prints 0, when of course this is not the case in reality for the frame's height. The panel's changing size is due to the user resizing the window its in. In one of my previous threads in this forum I learned how to use a GridLayout (it was 2 rows and 1 column in size) to keep the height of the top area in a BorderLayout fixed, yet as the user resized the window, the layout would stretch the area width-wise accordingly. However, that was because I had 2 cells in the layout to control, and I know this wouldn't work with only 1. Any ideas?

Answer 1

You still apparently haven't read the tutorial on using Layout Managers to understand the capabilites of each Layout Manager.
For instance, within the constructor of one of my JFrames using
System.out.println(this.getHeight()); prints 0, when of course this is not the case in reality for the frame's heightComponents don't have a size until the GUI is visible on the screen. That is until you've done a pack(), or a setVisible( true ). You should never be using setSize().
Layout Managers use setPreferredSize() ,setMinimumSize() and setMaximumSize() as suggestions for determining the layout. Although most layout managers don't use all the suggestions, which is why you need to read the tutorial to find out how the layout managers work.
I'm now having trouble trying to figure out how to only resize the height
of a JTabbedPane yet keep the width fixedWell, I don't understand the requirement. The preferred size of a tabbed pane is equal to the preferred size of the largest tab added to the tabbed pane. So I don't understand the concept of artificially changing the vertical height.
Anyway reread the tutorial on "How to Use the Border Layout". Two of the 5 areas respect the width of the component but alter the height to fill all the available space.
If you need further help then you need to create a [url http://homepage1.nifty.com/algafield/sscce.html]Short, Self Contained, Compilable and Executable, Example Program that demonstrates the incorrect behaviour, because I can't guess exactly what you are doing based on the information provided.
And don't forget to use the [url http://forum.java.sun.com/help.jspa?sec=formatting]Code Formatting Tags so the code retains its original formatting.