Nested Swing Layouts

[cochand]

Please refer to the SWT post of Wed Jul 06, 2005 1:35 pm entitled Nested SWT Layouts

I was able to build a great SWT app that had a SWT Tree on the left 1/3 of the app window and a stack of composites on the right 2/3 of the screen. Clicking on a node of the tree displayed a different composite on the right side of the screen.

Now I need to recreate this in Swing and am looking for advice.

Should I use a Swing FormLayout and stick a JTree in the left 1/3 and a Swing CardLayout in the right 2/3? Can I create the same type of navigation of clicking on a node of the JTree, and dynamically displaying a separate "card" on the right side? Should those cards contain JPanels?

Thanks

[Eric Clayberg]

I was able to build a great SWT app that had a SWT Tree on the left 1/3 of the app window and a stack of composites on the right 2/3 of the screen. Clicking on a node of the tree displayed a different composite on the right side of the screen. Now I need to recreate this in Swing and am looking for advice. Should I use a Swing FormLayout and stick a JTree in the left 1/3 and a Swing CardLayout in the right 2/3? Can I create the same type of navigation of clicking on a node of the JTree, and dynamically displaying a separate "card" on the right side? Should those cards contain JPanels?

You can use a JTree and a JPanel with a CardLayout. The CardLayout would itself contain multiple JPanels which you could switch between based on selections in the tree using the CardLayout.show() method.

Here's a simple example:

Code: Select all

import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.swing.event.*;

public class SwingFrame extends JFrame {

    public static void main(String args[]) {
        try {
            SwingFrame frame = new SwingFrame();
            frame.setVisible(true);
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

    public SwingFrame() {
        super();
        getContentPane().setLayout(new BorderLayout());
        setBounds(100, 100, 500, 300);
        setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);

        final JPanel panel = new JPanel();
        final CardLayout card = new CardLayout();
        panel.setLayout(card);
        getContentPane().add(panel);

        final JPanel first = new JPanel();
        first.setName("A");
        panel.add(first, first.getName());

        final JButton button = new JButton();
        button.setText("Panel A");
        first.add(button);

        final JPanel second = new JPanel();
        second.setName("B");
        panel.add(second, second.getName());

        final JTextField textField = new JTextField();
        textField.setText("Panel B");
        second.add(textField);

        final JList list = new JList(new String[] {"A", "B"});
        list.addListSelectionListener(new ListSelectionListener() {
            public void valueChanged(ListSelectionEvent e) {
                card.show(panel, (String)list.getSelectedValues()[0]);
            }
        });
        list.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(50, 0));
        getContentPane().add(list, BorderLayout.WEST);
    }
}