The logic is done, but my LAYOUT looks Awful!!! help?

Question

You guys have been great in helping me get through my little trivia game project and I believe I have ALL the logical processing in place, but the final and saddest MOST BLARING problem now is this DISGUSTING Layout.
Here is the link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7270990@N06/414222370/
(PLEASE DONT LAUGH TOO HARD) -- I have been saving this part till last.
BUT do you guys have any easy layout suggestions? I looked around for awhile and all the layouts seem very complicated to get the look I would like. I just want to be able to have more control and make it look better. I thought of the border layout but couldnt get more than one element in each section.
I would like the top10 list to be straight down -- more space and even alignment between the buttons and questions....blah blah blah.
I'm sure some of you have heard this 1000 times... can you give me some hints?
Message was edited by:
tvance929

Answer 1

Thanks all! I just read your posts... I'm putting the first part of my code but PLEASE realize, this is my first big (for me) program -- I'm a newbie, I know it is a little scattered and probably not commented like it should be... so grace and mercy would be appreciated, but so would some coding advice! NOT TOO MENTION my layout issue problem.
=======================
import java.text.*; //for formatting
import javax.swing.*; //imports swing classes
import java.awt.event.*; //imports event listeners
import java.awt.Container; // Container methods
import java.awt.*; //layout manager
import java.io.*; // File readers
import java.util.*; // Tokenizer
import java.util.Arrays;
public class TriviaGame extends JFrame {
private JFrame mainFrame; //main container variable
private JButton answerButton; // Calculate button variable -
private JButton exitButton; // Exit button variable
private JTextField answerField; // Length text field variable
private JTextField scoreField; // Score field variable
private JTextField qmissedField; // Questions missed field
private JLabel[] toptenLabel; // Top Ten Labels (array so we can print them all as seperate labels)
private JLabel questionLabel; // The Questions label
private JLabel qmissedLabel; //Questions Missed label
private JLabel scoreLabel; //Score label
private JLabel answerLabel;
private JLabel totalPointLabel, answerReport;
private JLabel TopTenScores, top1, top2, top3, top4, top5, top6, top7, top8, top9, top10; //Top Ten Scores Labels
private String questionsFile = "questions.txt";
private String toptenFile = "topten.txt";
private String inLine, newScore, playerName;
private StringTokenizer st;
private int i, e, score, questionsMissed, randomQuestion;
private int[] qpointsInt, topScoresInt;
private double random;
private String[] answer, fileCustomer, question, qpoints, questionAsked, topScores, topNames, topTenScores;
/** Creates a new instance of TriviaGame */
public TriviaGame() {
mainFrame = new JFrame("Todd's Trivia"); //Defining container with label
//Buttons on interface
answerButton = new JButton("Submit"); //Creating Calc button
exitButton = new JButton("Exit"); // Creating Exit Button
qmissedLabel = new JLabel("Questions Missed:"); //Creating width label
scoreLabel = new JLabel("Score:"); //depth label
answerLabel = new JLabel("Answer");
answerReport = new JLabel("");
TopTenScores = new JLabel("TOP TEN SCORES!");
//text fields for labels
answerField = new JTextField(5);
scoreField = new JTextField(5);
qmissedField = new JTextField(5);
//These strings are for the data that will be read in from the external file (customers.txt)
question = new String[10];
answer = new String[10];
qpoints = new String[10];
qpointsInt = new int[10];
questionAsked = new String[10];
topScoresInt = new int[10]; //Int'ing the top ten scores from the file
topScores = new String[10];
topNames = new String[10];
topTenScores = new String[10]; //Concatenated scores and names for using Array.sort() if it will work!
HighScore[] top = new HighScore[10]; //High Score object that will properly sort the scores
questionsMissed = 0; //Questions Missed variable...duh!
//Assign ALL questions asked with the marker of "n" for NO - this variable will tell us if a question has been asked yet or not.
// Need to change this iteration as we add more questions!!!
for (e=0; e<10; e++)
questionAsked[e] = "n";
i = 0; //The line counter for reading from file
score = 0; //Score!
//TOP TEN SCORES MECHANISM - implementing the HighScore object!
try //the reader stream must have a means for throwing errors if problem with opening stream
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader (new FileReader(toptenFile)); //Opens stream to read data from file
//The following few lines pull the data from the file line by line and create a seperate variable for each piece of data
while ((inLine = br.readLine())!= null)
st = new StringTokenizer (inLine);
topScores[i] = st.nextToken();
topNames[i] = st.nextToken();
topScoresInt=Integer.parseInt(topScores[i]);
top[i] = new HighScore(topScoresInt[i],topNames[i]);
i++;
br.close(); //closing the stream
Arrays.sort(top);
i = 0; //Resetting this variable for the next read.
catch(IOException e) //Catches an IOExceptions and gives appropriate response.
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "Top Ten File NOT FOUND - exiting program", "File Not Found!",
JOptionPane.INFORMATION_MESSAGE);
top1 = new JLabel("1. " + top[9]);
top2 = new JLabel("2. " + top[8]);
top3 = new JLabel("3. " + top[7]);
top4 = new JLabel("4. " + top[6]);
top5 = new JLabel("5. " + top[5]);
top6 = new JLabel("6. " + top[4]);
top7 = new JLabel("7. " + top[3]);
top8 = new JLabel("4. " + top[2]);
top9 = new JLabel("5. " + top[1]);
top10 = new JLabel("6. " + top[0]);
try //the reader stream must have a means for throwing errors if problem with opening stream
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader (new FileReader(questionsFile)); //Opens stream to read data from file
//The following few lines pull the data from the file line by line and create a seperate variable for each piece of data
random = Math.round(Math.random()*4);
randomQuestion = (int)random;
while ((inLine = br.readLine())!= null)
if (i == randomQuestion)
st = new StringTokenizer (inLine, "^");
question[i] = st.nextToken();
answer[i] = st.nextToken();
qpoints[i] = st.nextToken();
qpointsInt[i]=Integer.parseInt(qpoints[i]);
questionLabel = new JLabel(question[i]); //This creates a SINGLE question that has been chose randomly
totalPointLabel = new JLabel(qpoints[i]); //This is to tell us what question it is.
questionAsked[i]="y";
break;
i++;
br.close(); //closing the stream
catch(IOException e) //Catches an IOExceptions and gives appropriate response.
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "Question File NOT FOUND - exiting program", "File Not Found!",
JOptionPane.INFORMATION_MESSAGE);
Container c = mainFrame.getContentPane(); // Get the content pane
c.setLayout(new FlowLayout(FlowLayout.CENTER)); // Setting Layout
//adding all components to layout in order of appearence
c.add(questionLabel);
c.add(answerField);
c.add(answerLabel);
c.add(answerButton);
c.add(scoreField);
scoreField.setText("0");
c.add(scoreLabel);
c.add(qmissedLabel);
c.add(qmissedField);
c.add(answerButton);
c.add(exitButton);
c.add(totalPointLabel);
c.add(answerReport);
c.add(TopTenScores);
c.add(top1); c.add(top2); c.add(top3); c.add(top4); c.add(top5);
c.add(top6); c.add(top7); c.add(top8); c.add(top9); c.add(top10);
Message was edited by:
tvance929