Wasted Space in JTabbedPane

Question

Anyone know if there is a way to prevent excess space in a JTabbedPane? As in, keep the pane only as big at the biggest tab within it?
Take this for example:
public class TabbedPaneLayoutTest {
     public static void main(String[] args) {
          SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
               public void run() {
                    launchUI();
     private static void launchUI() {
          JFrame frame = new JFrame("Tabbed Pane Layout Test");
          JPanel mainPanel = new JPanel(new BorderLayout());
          JTabbedPane tabbedPane = new JTabbedPane();
          for (int i=0; i<4; i++) {
               tabbedPane.addTab("test", new JLabel("Hi"));
          mainPanel.add(tabbedPane, BorderLayout.NORTH);
          JScrollPane scrollPane = new JScrollPane();
          mainPanel.add(scrollPane, BorderLayout.CENTER);
          frame.setContentPane(mainPanel);
          frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
          frame.pack();
          frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
          frame.setVisible(true);
}In the example, I placed the JTabbedPane in the NORTH of a BorderLayout to try and keep it as compact as possible. If you set i to either 1 or 2, so only 1 or 2 tabs are created, the tabs stay very compact. But when you get up to 4 or more tabs, there is a fair amount of wasted space. Anyone familiar with this phenomenon and/or have any possible solutions?

Answer 1

Looks like you are right, camickr -- The default wrapped tab layout policy must be leaving extra space for wrapping the tabs. When I switch to SCROLL_TAB_LAYOUT the wasted space disappears. I had originally assumed that the panel would simply grow in size when it needs to wrap tabs, but apparently it's doesn't work like that. For the particular instance where it was troubling me, I'll just switch to the scroll tab layout. Thanks.
Edited by: Skotty on Jun 25, 2010 5:40 PM