Weird problem with jpanel vs jframe

Question

I'm using jmathplot.jar from JMathTools which lets me do 3d plotting. I used a JFrame to get some code to work and it worked fine. Here's the code that worked for a JFrame:
public class View extends JFrame
    private Model myModel;
    private Plot3DPanel myPanel;
    // ... Components
    public View(Model m)
        myModel = m; 
        // ... Initialize components
        myPanel = new Plot3DPanel("SOUTH");
        myPanel.addGridPlot("Test",myModel.getXRange(),myModel.getYRange(),myModel.getZValues());
        setSize(600, 600);
        setContentPane(myPanel);
        setVisible(true);
}Here's the class that starts everything:
public class TestApplet extends JApplet
    public void init()
        //Execute a job on the event-dispatching thread; creating this applet's GUI.
        try
            SwingUtilities.invokeAndWait(new Runnable()
                public void run()
                    createGUI();
        catch (Exception e)
            e.printStackTrace();
    private void createGUI()
        System.out.println("Creating GUI");
        Model model = new Model();
        View view = new View(model);
}And here's the Model:
public class Model
    private double[] myXRange,myYRange;
    private double[][] myZValues;
    public Model()
        createDataSet();
    public double[] getXRange()
        return myXRange;
    public double[] getYRange()
        return myYRange;
    public double[][] getZValues()
        return myZValues;
    private void createDataSet()
        myXRange = new double[10];
        myYRange = new double[10];
        myZValues = new double[10][10];
        for(double i=0;i<10;i++)
            for(double j=0;j<10;j++)
                double x = i/10;
                double y = j/10;
                myXRange[(int) i] = x;
                myYRange[(int) j] = y;
                myZValues[(int) i][(int) j]= Math.cos(x*Math.PI)*Math.sin(y*Math.PI);
}However, as you can see, my main class is a JApplet because ideally I want View to be a JPanel that I add to the applet. All I did was change "extends JFrame" to "extends JApplet" and changed:
setSize(600, 600);
setContentPane(myPanel);
setVisible(true);to
this.add(myPanel);and added these two lines to createGUI():
        view.setOpaque(true);
        setContentPane(view);When I run it however, it appears really really small. It seems like its drawing the panel to the default size of the applet viewer and doesn't resize it when I resize the applet. I don't know if it's a problem with the library or if I'm doing something wrong in my applet.

Answer 1

However, as you can see, my main class is a JApplet because ideally I want View to be a JPanel that I add to the applet. All I did was change "extends JFrame" to "extends JApplet" and (...)What do you mean? View extends JApplet? I thought View was meant to extend JPanel in the end...
When I run it however, it appears really really small. It seems like its drawing the panel to the default size of the applet viewer and doesn't resize it when I resize the applet.Or, the panel has its preferred size, and this latter is too small. Actually the panel has the size its container's layout manager awards it (taking or not the panel's preferred, minimum, and maximum sizes into account). See the tutorial on [layout managers|http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/layout/index.html] .
In particular, this line adds the myPanel to a parent panel (presumably, it is in class View which extends JPanel, whose default layout is FlowLayout):
this.add(myPanel);
I don't know if it's a problem with the library or if I'm doing something wrong in my applet.Likely not (presumably the library interfers only in how it computes the Plot3DPanel's preferred size). There's an easy way to tell: try to layout correctly a custom JPanel of yours, containing only e.g. a button with an icon. Once you understand the basics of layout management, revisit the example using ther 3rd-party library.
N.B.: there are a lot of "likely" and "presumably" in my reply: in order to avoid hardly-educated guesses especially on what is or isn't in your actual code, you'd better provide an SSCCE , which means reproducing the problem without the 3rd party library.