The resizing of a JTextArea

Question

Hi.
Before I begin, I have...
--Searched the forums for similar postings
--Read the API for all related components
--Attempted various solutions myself
--Followed the Swing tutorials/trails
That being said, I've got a JTextArea that gets added to a JPanel that gets added to a JFrame. The JPanel uses a GridBagLayout. The problem is that when I resize the GUI negatively, at some point, my JTextArea suffers from significant shrinkage. It kinda does this broken rubberband thing where the JTextArea goes to about 1 or 2 pixels in height and all the other components move toward the vertical center of the window along with the now tiny JTextArea.
Code below. Thanks in advance to those who enjoy answering these things for those of us that are temporarily frustrated :-)
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import java.net.*;
public class BidToolGUI {
* Create the GUI and show it. For thread safety,
* this method should be invoked from the
* event-dispatching thread.
private static void createAndShowGUI() {
     //create an object of type BidToolGUI to work with
     BidToolGUI myGUI = new BidToolGUI();
     //create components
     JLabel custNameLabel = new JLabel("Customer name: ");
          JLabel sheetIDLabel = new JLabel("Fact sheet ID: ");
          JLabel howManyLabel = new JLabel("How many D p/n's?: ");
          JLabel dpnsLabel = new JLabel("Delta p/n's: ");
          JLabel filler = new JLabel("");
     JRadioButton thinkcentre = new JRadioButton("ThinkCentre");
     JRadioButton thinkpad = new JRadioButton("ThinkPad");
     ButtonGroup buttons = new ButtonGroup();
     buttons.add(thinkcentre);
     buttons.add(thinkpad);
     JTextField custNameField = new JTextField();
     JTextField sheetIDField = new JTextField();
     JTextField howManyField = new JTextField(5);
     JTextArea dpnsArea = new JTextArea(25, 25);
     JScrollPane scrollDpnsArea = new JScrollPane(dpnsArea);
     JButton gen = new JButton("Get delta p/n's");
     JButton clear = new JButton("Clear");
     JButton search = new JButton("Search");
          *string used to communicate to Site the brand
          *looks at the buttons
     String think;
          *string set up to receive data back from php
     String line;
//Make sure we have nice window decorations.
//JFrame.setDefaultLookAndFeelDecorated(true);
//Create and set up the window.
JFrame frame = new JFrame("Bid Tool");
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
frame.setLocation(200, 100);
//Create a JTabbed pane
JTabbedPane tabbedPane = new JTabbedPane();
//Create a JPanel that uses a GridBagLayout
JPanel panel1 = new JPanel(new GridBagLayout());
     //Create a new GridBagConstraints object
     GridBagConstraints c = new GridBagConstraints();
     c.fill = GridBagConstraints.BOTH;
     //Add the ThinkCentre button
     c.gridx = 0;
               c.gridy = 0;
     panel1.add(thinkcentre, c);
     //Add the ThinkPad button
     c.gridx = 1;
               c.gridy = 0;
     panel1.add(thinkpad, c);
     //Add the customer name label
     c.gridx = 0;
               c.gridy = 1;
     panel1.add(custNameLabel, c);
     //Add the customer name field
     c.gridx = 1;
               c.gridy = 1;
               c.gridwidth = 2;
               panel1.add(custNameField, c);
     //Add the sheet ID label
     c.gridx = 0;
               c.gridy = 2;
               c.gridwidth = 1;
     panel1.add(sheetIDLabel, c);
     //Add the sheet ID field
     c.gridx = 1;
               c.gridy = 2;
               c.gridwidth = 2;
               panel1.add(sheetIDField, c);
     //Add the how many? label
     c.gridx = 0;
     c.gridy = 3;
     c.gridwidth = 1;
     panel1.add(howManyLabel, c);
     //Add the how many? field
     c.gridx = 1;
     c.gridy = 3;
     c.gridwidth = 1;
     panel1.add(howManyField, c);
     //Add the Get Delta p/n's button
     c.gridx = 0;
     c.gridy = 4;
     c.weightx = .3;
     c.gridwidth = 1;
     panel1.add(gen, c);
     //Add the clear button
     c.gridx = 1;
     c.gridy = 4;
     c.weightx = .3;
     c.gridwidth = 1;
     panel1.add(clear, c);
     //Add the search button
     c.gridx = 2;
     c.gridy = 4;
     c.weightx = .3;
     c.gridwidth = 1;
     panel1.add(search, c);
     //Add the output area
     c.gridx = 0;
     c.gridy = 5;
     c.gridwidth = 3;
     panel1.add(scrollDpnsArea, c);
     tabbedPane.addTab("DPNG", null, panel1,
"Delta p/n Generator");
//Add the tabbedPane to the frame
//JLabel label = new JLabel("Hello World"); <<<old code from example>>>
frame.getContentPane().add(tabbedPane);
//Display the window.
frame.pack();
frame.setVisible(true);
public static void main(String[] args) {
//Schedule a job for the event-dispatching thread:
//creating and showing this application's GUI.
javax.swing.SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
createAndShowGUI();
}

Answer 1

Okee dokee. Great answer. I now have a clue and will go try and implement the appropriate code. The one thing I don't get is this: Since I'm using GridBagLayout, the size of the panel is determined dynamically by GridBagLayout based on what components I'm putting where. I like the size of the window when I first run the program, but how do I know what that size is? I'm going to go back and set the minimum size as you suggested, but getting it to be the size that it is when I first run the program is going to be trial and error I think.
Thanks so much for the direction.